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4 






Under the Sunset 


ffiarpgr’B NottgUttgg 


EDITED BY 

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 
AND 

HENRY MILLS ALDEN 



Harper & Brothers Publishers 
New York and London 
J 906 







fLIBRARY of CONGRESS 


Two Copies Received 

MAY 11 1906 



Copyright, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1904, 1905, 1906, by 
Harper & Brothbrs. 

All rights reserved. 

Published May, 1906. 









GRACE ELLERY CHANNING 

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 

THOMAS A. JANVIER 

THE SAGE-BRUSH HEN 

ELIA W. PEATTIE 

A MADONNA OF THE DESERT 

MARIE MANNING 
THE PROPHETESS OF THE LAND 
OF NO-SMOKE 

PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS 

A LITTLE PIONEER 

ELMORE ELLIOTT PEAKE 

BACK TO INDIANA 

CHARLES A. EASTMAN, M.D. 

THE GRA Y CHIEFTAIN 

ZOE DANA UNDERHILL 

THE INN OF SAN JACINTO 

MAURICE KINGSLEY 

TIO JUAN 

JOSIAH FLYNT 

JAMIE THE KID 










Introduction 


Undoubtedly it was the work of Bret 
Harte, bold in action, high in color, and 
simple in motive, which established an 
ideal of the Farthest West in literature. 
Europe, where he is still better known 
than any other American writer, still 
clings to that ideal; it keeps the fancy 
of the English as well as the Germans, 
the Russians, and the French. But 
American art, to which the West is bet¬ 
ter known with its changes from the 
gold-seeking days to those of the settled 
industries, has refined upon that ideal. 
Something vastly more complex speaks 
to us from both the hither and the 
thither slopes of the Sierras. The plains 
are conscious of their mysticism; the 
wild nature itself seeks a voice in the 
communion of savage man and savage 
beast. The old rollicking humor finds 
vent yet in temperament and incident, 
and Mr. Janvier’s heroine suggests the 


VI 


Introduction 


earlier heroines of the first master; but 
how far from his are such types as “ The 
Madonna of the Desert ” and u The 
Prophetess of the Land of No Smoke!” 
The delicate divinations of Mrs. Ellery 
Channing, the close, firm study of Mr. 
Mighels in frontier character, are equal¬ 
ly surprising eventuations in fiction 
dealing with life in the region of Harte’s 
daring and once fresh conventions. The 
homesickness aching through Mr. 
Peake’s pathetic story of the returning 
exiles is all as different from the primal 
strain of hilarious fatalism, of melo¬ 
dramatic incident, as it is from the sad, 
plain dreadfulness of Mr. Kingsley’s 
tragedy, or Mrs. Underhill’s round, old- 
fashioned supernaturalism; and how re¬ 
mote in temperament is Mr. Plynt’s tale 
of the boy tramp u beating ” his way 
back to the States from Dr. Eastman’s 
poetic piece of animism in “ The Gray 
Chieftain.” 

The things are convincingly alike in 
their several excellence, and in their 
varying truth to the farther and nearer 
lands Under the Sunset. They are not 
only important now—fine art, genuine 
motive, original spirit—but they are ex¬ 
tremely interesting and significant as 
suggestions of the great work to be done 


Introduction 


vu 


in and about a region of America where 
the completion of the interoceanic com¬ 
munications and the drawing together 
of East and West seemed to paralyze the 
nascent consciousness of the Pacific 
shore in literature. Finally, in the im¬ 
mense geographical range of these ad¬ 
mirable stories, we have some faint in¬ 
dications of the vastness as well as the 
richness of the field they touch. 

W. D. H. 





The End of the Journey 

BY GRACE ELLERY CHANNING 

T HE train, a local, drew up to the 
primitive station with a ruder jolt 
and a shrieking whistle, and the 
woman got out. She stood a moment 
on the platform, looking off at the brown 
and dusty landscape,—it was summer 
and the land was dry,—her face, the 
while, arming silently for an approach¬ 
ing ordeal. 

It had been a finely modelled face, to 
begin with; now it was as finely scored, 
with little lines here and there about 
the corners of the eyes and lips, as if 
the engraver Sorrow had followed the 
sculptor Life. 

She had probably never been beautiful, 
but beautiful women would have ex¬ 
changed with her for that something else 
which she was, and discerning women 
would have bartered their fine clothes 
for her secret of wearing simple ones. 
Her soft, excellently brushed hair was 


2 Harper's Novelettes 

thinly veined with gray; her costume 
was a darker gray; her gloves, fitted to 
the long hands within, unfashionably 
dainty. In brief, a lady, before the word 
was spoiled. Equally unmistakably, a lady 
at odds with her present errand, whatever 
that might be. The patient restraint 
of the fine mouth narrowly controlled 
a complete impatience, and the very car¬ 
riage of her body and the height at which 
she held her head seemed in a manner 
to protest against some inner compulsion, 
—the distaste was visible through all the 
weariness of her eyes, gazing from the 
brown hills to the browner plains at 
their feet. 

There was no one to meet her—which 
was not surprising, since she knew no 
one,—and after a moment’s doubtful 
consulting of landmarks she set off down 
a long road opposite the station, lifting 
her skirt in one hand to clear the ankle- 
deep adobe dust, while with the finger¬ 
tips of the other she held—as we hold 
what we do not hold willingly—a small 
package, elaborately tied and sealed. 

One house succeeded another at long 
intervals filled with straggling orange 
and lemon groves. At the eighth of 
these, and fully a quarter of a mile 
from the station, she hesitated a moment 


The End of the Journey 3 

before passing through the opening in 
the neglected cypress hedge and up the 
narrow path towards the house, unpaint¬ 
ed and low, with the wide Californian 
porch and running vines which render 
the commonplace of the West so much 
more tolerable than the commonplace of 
the East. 

It was a spot not incapable of charm, 
for there were shade-trees and growing 
things, but the drought had been at 
work, and the air of barren living some¬ 
how diffused itself mutely through the 
patch of drying vegetables and the shriv¬ 
elled leaves of the deciduous growth to 
the house beyond. Even the dustless 
peppers looked dusty, thin, and forlorn. 

The woman stopped short midway of 
the path. Her lips twitched and a new 
look passed into her eyes—keyed to si¬ 
lent endurance. The fastidious distaste 
of the moment before deepened into a 
revolt of her whole being—a revolt of 
race,—smiting her to a sudden impulse 
of sharp anger, followed by pity as sharp. 

“Poor boy!”—it was only a muttered 
sound, but she feared she had cried it 
aloud; and closing her lips again in 
their habitual line, she went on up the 
path, with a sigh like a suppressed sob, 
carrying her head an unconscious inch 


4 


Harper's Novelettes 


higher than before, her finger-tips tight¬ 
ening their protesting clutch. 

Evidently she had been expected, for 
a younger woman appeared at the door 
and came out on the porch. For a mo¬ 
ment they gazed at each other from the 
top and bottom of the steps before the 
elder woman spoke. 

“You are Mrs. Hallette?” 

“ Yes, — and I expect you are his 
mother ?” 

“ I am his mother.” 

They gazed at each other again. 

“Won’t you come up and sit down?” 
said the younger woman. She led the 
way into a small room opening from the 
porch and pushed forward a chair to 
the visitor, seating herself with a little 
fling in one opposite. 

There was something sullen in her 
air—a mixture of defiance, embarrass¬ 
ment, and pride. Her heavy, dark, pret¬ 
ty hair—pretty, though not fine—was 
rolled in the Pompadour mode of the 
moment about her heavily round, youth¬ 
ful face. The face was not unpretty, 
either, in its softly massed contours and 
clear coloring. It was not extremely 
young, yet there was something almost 
childlike about it, and it had the fresh 
vitality of a not too nervous race—the 


The End of the Journey 5 

look one sees in the best peasant stock 
of Europe or occasionally among our 
backwoods girls. Her curved body had 
the same vital attraction; it would bet¬ 
ter have become one of the white-yoked, 
full-sleeved peasant costumes than it did 
the conventional shirt-waist and skirt 
she wore. There was a ring with a stone 
above the plain wedding-band on her 
brown, supple, capable worker’s hand, 
and a prettily enamelled watch at her 
belt. The whole impression registered 
itself in an instant on the sensitive brain 
opposite. 

The other had been surveying her 
equally, with a kind of fascinated gaze. 

“ I should have known you anywhere 
for his mother,” she said. “You look 
so like him.” 

“Yes ?”■—the fine eyebrows lifted a little. 
“ The resemblance is not usually thought 
to be so strong.” It was as if she re¬ 
pelled it, as bringing her indefinitely 
nearer to something she shrank from; 
and then becoming suddenly aware of 
that instinct in herself and startled by it, 
she spoke again, hastily and with extreme 
gentleness. It was not her fault that the 
very tones of her voice seemed only to 
accentuate the gulf between herself and 
the other speaker. A voice, above all 


6 Harpers Novelettes 

things, is the gift of centuries. Beautiful 
voices, it is true, may be found anywhere, 
hut one kind of beautiful voice is the 
product of ages of gentle speaking only. 

“I am the bearer of a message from 
—my son; he wished me to give you 
this,”—and again it was not her fault 
that her finger-tips conveyed their protest 
faintly through their very manner of 
offering the package. 

“ Thank you,—he wrote he’d send it,” 
said the younger woman, coloring slight¬ 
ly. She laid it unopened on her lap and 
returned to her fascinated study of the 
woman opposite. 

“ Perhaps you will kindly see that it is 
—all right; he sealed it himself.” 

The other colored again. “ I guess it 
isn’t necessary—if he sent it—and you 
brought it.” 

The pathetically clumsy intention of 
the phrase did not soften the face of 
the elder woman; she acknowledged it 
with a very slight bending of the head. 

“ I was also,—he wished me to bid you 
good-by.” 

The younger woman showed a shade 
of surprise. “ Won’t he come at all him¬ 
self, then?” 

“ You don’t seem to understand ”—the 
low voice was sharp with intensity of 


The End of the Journey 7 

restrained feeling—“that he—has been 
very ill!” 

For the first time the impassive lines 
of the other’s face showed disturbance; 
her lips trembled slightly, and she cast a 
vaguely troubled glance out of eyes like a 
frightened animal’s at the elder woman’s, 
which met hers with a hard brightness. 

“No,” she said, “I didn’t know; I’m 
sorry. I thought he hadn’t seemed quite 
himself for some time,—that maybe that 
was why he acted so strange.” 

“'Acted so strange ^—‘not quite him¬ 
self!’ Don’t you know—couldn’t you 
see he was frightfully ill — for — for 
months P” The words were jerked out 
with terrible intensity, between short, 
controlled breaths, but the voice never 
lifted, and the gloved hands lay quiet 
in the speaker’s lap. 

In spite of their implication, the wom¬ 
an at whom they were directed did not 
seem angered by them, but only vaguely 
troubled, as before. 

“ I’m sorry,” she repeated. “ He’s 
taken it very hard;—he don’t seem to— 
to have had any experience.” 

The elder woman sat back suddenly 
in her chair, as if something had broken 
which had heretofore held her upright. 

“No,” she said, in a painfully quiet 


8 


Harpers Novelettes 


voice; “ as you say,—lie had had no ex¬ 
perience. He thought the whole thing 
was real.” 

To her surprise, the shaft went home. 
The other drew herself up, flushing 
crimson,—and in so doing she became 
very handsome. 

“ I suppose you think I’m all to blame. 
Mothers always do. But I was in earnest 
too;—I thought it was all real. Those 
things will happen, you know.” 

The delicate stone face opposite im¬ 
mutably denied any such knowledge, 
“ Those things ” happened sometimes in 
the tenements, she would have told you; 
not in her world. But the other went 
on, oblivious, warming into a kind of 
effective energy. 

“ He took a great deal for granted 
from the first—but I did care; he wasn’t 
just like any one I’d ever known; we 
were interested in the same things,—and 
I thought at the time I cared more than 
I did. Anyway”—she wound up with 
vigor—“he took a great deal on himself 
to tell you about it.” 

The elder woman winced ever so 
slightly. “ I told you he was very ill.” 

“ And I suppose you blame me for it 
all?”—the eyes, no longer like a fright¬ 
ened animal’s, challenged hers with a 


The End of the Journey 9 

certain honest resentment, and the elder 
woman drew a sharp breath. 

“ I blame you for your lack of human¬ 
ity,—for your unkindness,—for failing 
him when you had brought him to—to 
such a pass. I don’t judge about the 
rest,—perhaps you couldn’t help it— 
either of you; I don’t know,'—I don’t 
judge,—I don’t want to judge. But to 
let him hang on in that miserable way,— 
not to see that it was ruining him—not 
to know—not to care—not to have com¬ 
mon pity,—common humanity,—after— 
after that —” She broke off suddenly, 
lifting her head and looking away from 
the woman, her lips set in one white line. 

“I didn’t understand he was so bad 
off,” said the other, almost humbly, and 
the hearer made a dumb gesture of re¬ 
linquishment. What was the use indeed ? 
She could not understand. It was all 
contained in that. 

The elder woman sat silent. 

“ I suppose he hates me now, too ?” 

“He has never said one word about 
you which was not beautiful,”—still in 
that painfully quiet tone. “ I told you, 
—he believed the whole thing.” 

Again it was a surprise to her when the 
face opposite broke suddenly up into a 
chaos of rudimentary emotions and the 

2 


io Harper's Novelettes 

woman burst into tears. Her visitor sur¬ 
veyed in apathetic astonishment. She 
had really cared, then? Some feeling 
did reside under that envelope of sturdy 
well-being,—that hide of the spirit? 

The storm was quickly over. With a 
vigorous touch the young woman wiped 
away the tears, murmuring a word half 
protest and half apology. 

“You wouldn’t understand;—we were 
raised different, I expect. You wouldn’t 
understand.” 

The abrupt throwing back of her own 
conclusion of a moment ago struck the 
elder woman. She cast a sharp glance 
at the face before her, still quivering 
with feeling through all its curious 
settled submission. Not understand! 
What least aspect of the whole tragedy 
was there that she did not understand 
only too well, she wondered with bitter¬ 
ness. What other brain ached like hers 
with limitless capacity for understanding, 
—for weighing to its final atom every 
wretched phase of the uncomplex drama 
and counting its whole intricate cost? 
Not understand! 

“ There’s something he left here—if 
you don’t mind taking it,” said the other, 
still submissively, and the elder woman 
made a mechanical gesture of assent. 


II 


The End of the Journey 

“ You wouldn’t understand,” — the 
words continued to sound in her ears. 
Tacitly excusing had been the woman’s 
tone, in contrast to her own unuttered 
accusation, but the words rankled none 
the less,—perhaps all the more. She sat 
there repeating numbly the irritating 
phrase, even while she said to herself 
that it did not matter—that nothing mat¬ 
tered; and her unseeing eyes wandered 
about the room, till across their blank 
field of vision another iteration pressed 
home to her brain. 

What was so familiar—so insistently 
familiar—about this room? She roused 
herself keenly now, and found an imme¬ 
diate answer. Object after object claim¬ 
ed her,—things dear, things alive, things 
eloquent, fragments of home, fragments 
of her son’s home, things that were like 
bits of the boy himself,—they were 
everywhere, and crying aloud after the 
manner of dumb things. 

She was on her feet in a moment. 
There was the Madonna bought by the 
boy’s father when the boy was born; 
it had always hung above his bed. 
There was his favorite “ Sleeping Faun,” 
bought the year they went abroad after 
his triumphal college Commencement; 
the rug picked up in the bazars of Cairo 


12 


Harper’s Novelettes 


was there. And there, doing duty as a 
paper-weight, was the carved shepherd 
boy from the Swiss canton; little old 
sketches,—a Venetian vase,—the room 
was full of the boy! And not only the 
boy. She was a woman of fetishes—a 
woman who had lost much—and to whom 
her dead lived again in their dumb pos¬ 
sessions; she walked to the bookcase and 
took down book after book with a rapid 
hand. Here was his father’s Ruskin,—• 
his own favorite Shelley,—his Emerson 
(another gift, that, from father to son); 
and here—she had not thought it pos¬ 
sible, even in the pang of recognition— 
here, dim with three generations of 
handling, its priceless binding fit casket 
for the treasure of the title-page within, 
where the dedication to the boy’s great¬ 
grandfather, from such a hand on such 
a glorious date, made in itself a heritage 
of pride,—here, dim crimson in its su¬ 
perb age, was the family Plutarch. 
It had been put in the boy’s proud hands 
by his father as a graduation gift. 

Scarlet lines struck across her cheek. 
Eor a moment she thought of him not 
as a mother thinks of her son, but as a 
woman of race thinks of the man who 
betrays it. Then something carried her 
indignant eyes to the shelf above. 


The End of the Journey 13 

There was a little clock on it—a simple, 
homely thing, ticking away cheerfully. 
That too was his; it had been given him 
to cheer the lagging hours of a childish 
convalescence, and it had been his fond 
fancy to keep it with him ever since. 
He had carried it to college; he had 
taken it to Europe; he had brought it 
here. The mother stood looking and 
looking at it, but she did not touch it 
with her yearning fingers; something 
interposed between. Her face was 
changed when she turned away and in¬ 
cluded the whole room once more in her 
lingering gaze from object to object. A 
poor, bare little room—without these 
things; a room the poor, foolish, but 
magnificently loving boy had trans¬ 
formed with his treasure, bringing it 
where his heart always was, seeking in¬ 
stinctively to enclose this woman in the 
home to which he dreamed of one day 
bringing her. It invested his folly with 
a certain dignity. At least he had loved 
as became him and his kind, unsordidly, 
uncalculatingly, with a high belief in 
what he loved; and in the wreck of his 
youth there had been something his 
mother could respect. 

She heard him fondly dwelling on the 
qualities of mind and heart of this worn- 



14 


Harper's Novelettes 


an,—the thirst he ascribed to her for 
books, pictures, all the adornments of 
that life to which he had been born. 
She had “never had a gift till he gave 
her one,”—she lacked “nothing but op¬ 
portunity to make her his mother’s in¬ 
tellectual equal.” And so—and so he 
had brought her the Plutarch. 

She was standings gazing at it again 
where she had replaced it on the shelf, 
when the other returned with a little 
package. Mechanically she received it 
into her own hand; for the first time 
she was observing that the woman’s fore¬ 
head was good. 

Meantime a wave of that ready color 
of hers had swept into the younger wom¬ 
an’s face; she had caught, as she entered, 
the other’s focussed gaze. 

“ I expect,” she exclaimed, and it was 
plain the shock of the idea was new 
to her, “you think I ought to give all 
these back!” 

In their turn her eyes made that jour¬ 
ney about the room, but leaping with the 
swiftness of familiarity from one dear 
object to another. How dear was easy 
to be seen; it was all a little world of 
delicate beauty and rich possession which 
slipped inch by inch away from her as 
the dumb eyes travelled on. The loss of 


The End of the Journey 15 


the man had been nothing; this denuded 
her universe, reducing it to the image 
of the barren garden outside. It de¬ 
nuded her life too; and she had been 
totally unprepared,—totally unforeseeing 
of it. Shut out by the facts of her ex¬ 
istence—daughter of workers, wife of a 
worker, a worker herself—from the pos¬ 
sibility of acquiring these things which 
yet she had the capacity to long for, 
she found herself brought face to face 
in a moment with the old destitution 
of her past. And she was pathetical¬ 
ly unprepared. 

So was the other; she understood now 
what her son had stood for in this life. 
Heretofore she had seen it always as an 
unequal contest between the experienced 
—because the married—woman and the 
inexperienced, ardent, visionary boy, the 
child of a long line of dreamers; now 
the obverse revealed itself,—the darling 
child of fortune, with his immense in¬ 
herited advantages and luxurious gifts 
of intellect, tempting the starved and 
passionately appetent brain of labor. It 
must have gone far to equalize the con¬ 
test. With her own pitiless inheritance 
of justice she acknowledged it, and it 
was a pang the more. There had not 
been one victim, but two. And if the 


16 Harper's Novelettes 

boy had but paid the price of centu¬ 
ries of deficit, the woman had but as 
helplessly avenged her defrauded past. 
Her very inability to respond to certain 
finer ranges of sensibilities—what was 
it but part and condition of that en¬ 
dured fraud? 

For her forehead was good and her 
eyes were hungry. 

“ I expect,” she repeated (and perhaps 
it was the merest chance that her hand, 
trembling across the bookcase, touched 
one lingering moment the dim crimson 
Plutarch), “I ought to send them back?” 

She raised two eyes full of honest, 
suffering purpose, but the other turned 
away from them, putting up her hands 
involuntarily as if to push away the 
question—the question which marked the 
impassable gulf between herself and this 
woman as nothing else could have done, 
and yet, as nothing else could have done, 
either, drew her across it with a vastness 
of sudden human pity in direct propor¬ 
tion to her own fierce sense of person¬ 
al revolt. 

“ No—no,” she cried; “that was be¬ 
tween you!” Then added, “But I know 
that he would say —~keep them!” 

She turned again and gazed at the 
bookshelves and the Plutarch—dimmer 



The End of the Journey 17 

still in its crimson binding the longer 
she gazed. She forgot the room, the 
woman,—even for a moment her son. 
She was seeing once more, down the 
long reach of her dearly remembered 
years, that gentle, learned, aristocratic 
judge. He had been a judge of men 
as well, of infinite kindliness, and tol¬ 
erant without bounds. 

She did not know how long she stood 
there, but she recalled herself with a 
start, to find that other figure still be¬ 
side her watching dumbly. And never 
in the world—that kindly judge of men 
must have smiled to see—had she looked 
a greater lady than as she turned to gaze 
upon it kindly with an outstretched hand. 

“ Good-by.” 

The other clung to it a moment. 
u Oh, I wish I had you for a friend!” 
she exclaimed, adding, chokingly, “ You 
won't think hard of me?” 

The elder woman shook her head, 
loosened her hand gently, and without 
another glance about her went out and 
down the steps. The younger, in the 
doorway, watched wistfully till the droop¬ 
ing peppers hid the last fold of the gray 
gown and the gray head carried high. 

Carried high,—for where had been the 
use of telling her that the boy was dead ? 



The Sage-brush Hen 

BY THOMAS A. JANVIER 

S HE blew in one day on Hill's coach 
from Santa Ee—Hill ran the coach 
that year the end of the track was 
at Palomitas, it being shorter going up 
that way to Pueblo and Denver and Lead- 
ville than round by the Atchison and 
changing at El Moro to the Narrow 
Gauge—and, being up on the box with 
Hill, she was so all over dust that Cher¬ 
ry sung out to him, “ Where’d you get 
your sage-brush hen from V 9 And the 
name stuck. 

More folks in Palomitas had names 
that had tumbled to 'em like that than 
the kind that had come regular. And 
even when they sounded regular you 
never could be dead sure they was. Reg¬ 
ular names used to get lost pretty often 
coming across the Plains in those days— 
more'n a few finding it better, about as 
they got to the Missouri, to leave be¬ 
hind what they’d been called by back 


The Sage-brush Hen 19 

East and draw something new from the 
pack. Making a change like that was 
apt to be wholesomer, and often saved talk. 

Hill said the Hen was more fun com¬ 
ing across from Santa Fe than a basket¬ 
ful of monkeys; and she was all the 
funnier, he said, because when he picked 
her up at the Fonda she looked like 
as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth 
and started in with her monkey-shines 
so sort of quiet and demure. Along with 
her, waiting at the Fonda, was an old 
gent with spectacles who turned out to 
be a mine-sharp—one of them fellows 
the government sends out to the Ter¬ 
ritory to write up serious in books all 
the fool stories prospectors and such un¬ 
load on ’em: the kind that needs to be 
led, and ’ll eat out of your hand. The 
Hen and the old gent and Hill had the 
box seat, the Hen in between; and she 
was that particular about her skirts 
climbing up, and about making room 
after she got there, that Hill said he 
sized her up himself for an officer’s 
wife going East. 

Except to say thank you, and talk 
polite that way, she didn’t open her head 
till they’d got clear of the town and 
were going slow in that first bit of bad 
road among the sand-hills; and it was 


20 Harper's Novelettes 

the old gent speaking to her—telling her 
it was a fine day, and he hoped she liked 
it—that set her stamps a-going a little 
then. She allowed the weather was 
about what it ought to be, and said she 
was much obliged and it suited her; and 
then she got her tongue in behind her 
teeth again as if she meant to keep it 
there—till the old gent took a fresh start 
by asking her if she’d been in the Ter¬ 
ritory long. She said polite she hadn’t, 
and was quiet for a minute. Then she 
got out her pocket-handkerchief and put 
it up to her eyes and said she’d been in 
it longer’n she wanted, and was glad 
she was going away. Hill said her talk¬ 
ing that way made him feel kind of cu¬ 
rious himself; but he didn’t have no 
need to ask questions — the old gent 
saving him that trouble by going for her 
sort of fatherly and pumping away at 
her till he got the whole thing. 

It come out scrappy, like as might be 
expected. Hill said; and so natural¬ 
sounding he thought he must be asleep 
and dreaming—he knowing pretty well 
what was going on in the Territory, and 
she telling about doings that was news 
to him and the kind he’d been sure to 
hear a lot of if they’d ever really come 
off. Hill said he wished he could tell it 


The Sage-brush Hen 21 

all as she did—speaking low, and ketching 
her breath in the worst parts, and mop¬ 
ping at her eyes with her pocket- 
handkerchief—but he couldn’t; and all 
he could say about it was it was better’n 
any theatre show he’d ever seen. The 
nubs of it was, he said, that she said 
her husband had taken out a troop from 
Fort Wingate against the Apaches (Hill 
knew blame well up there in the Navajo 
country was no place to look for 
Apaches) and the troop had been am¬ 
bushed in a canon in the Zuni Mountains 
(which made the story still tougher) and 
every man of ’em, along with her “ dear 
Captain,” as she called him, had lost 
his hair. “ His loved remains are where 
those fierce creatures left them,” she said. 
“ I have not even the sad solace of prop¬ 
erly burying his precious bones!” And 
she cried. 

The old gent was quite broke up. Hill 
said, and took a-hold of her hand father¬ 
ly—she was a powerful fine-looking wom¬ 
an—and said she had his sympathy; and 
when she eased up on her crying so she 
could talk she said she was much obliged 
—and felt it all the more, she said, be¬ 
cause he looked like a young uncle of 
hers who’d brought her up, her father 
being dead, till she was married East 


22 Harper's Novelettes 

to her dear Captain and had come out 
to the Territory with him to his doom. 

Hill said it all went so smooth he 
took it down himself at first—but he got 
his wind while she was crying, and he 
asked her what her Captain’s name was, 
and what was his regiment; telling her he 
hadn’t heard of any trouble up around 
Wingate, and it was news to him Apaches 
was in those parts. She give him a dig 
in the ribs with her elbow—as much as 
to tell him he wasn’t to ask no such 
questions—and said back to him her 
dear husband was Captain Chiswick of 
the Twelfth Cavalry; and it had been a 
big come-down for him, she said, when 
he got his commission in the Regulars, 
after he’d been a Volunteer brigadier- 
general in the war. 

Hill knew right enough there wasn’t 
no Twelfth Cavalry nowhere, and he 
knew the boys at Wingate were A and 
F troops of the Fourth; but he ketched 
on to the way she was giving it to the 
old gent—and so he give her a dig in 
the ribs, and said he’d known Captain 
Chiswick intimate, and he was as good 
a fellow as ever was, and it was a blame 
pity he was killed. She give him a dig 
back again, at that—and was less par¬ 
ticular about making room on his side. 


The Sage-brush Hen 


23 


The old gent took it all in, just as 
it come along; and after she’d finished 
up about the Apaches killing her dear 
Captain he wanted to know where she 
was heading for—because if she was 
going home East, he said, he was go¬ 
ing East himself and could give her a 
father’s care. 

She said back to him, pleasant-like, 
that a young man like him couldn’t well 
be fathering an old lady like her, though 
it was obliging of him to offer; but, any¬ 
way, she wasn’t going straight back East, 
because she had to wait a while at Palo- 
mitas for a remittance she was expecting 
to pay her way through—and she wasn’t 
any too sure about it, she said, whether 
she’d get her remittance; or, if she did 
get it, when it would come. Everything 
bad always got down on you at once, 
she said; and j’ust as the cruel savages 
had slain her dear Captain along come 
the news the bank East he’d put his 
money in had broke the worst kind. Her 
financial difficulties wasn’t a patch on 
the trouble her sorrowing heart was giv¬ 
ing her, she said; but she allowed they 
added what she called pangs of bitter¬ 
ness to her deeper pain. 

The old gent—he wasn’t a fool clean 
through—asked her what was the mat- 


24 


Harper's Novelettes 


ter with her government transportation; 
she having a right to transportation, be¬ 
ing an officer’s widow going home. Hill 
said he gave her a nndge at that, as much 
as to say the old gent had her. She 
didn’t faze a bit, though. It was her 
government transportation she was wait¬ 
ing for, she cracked back to him smooth 
and natural; but such things had to go 
all the way to Washington to be settled, 
she said, and then come West again— 
Hill said he ’most snickered out at that— 
and she’d known cases when red tape had 
got in the way and transportation hadn’t 
been allowed at all. Then she sighed 
terrible, and said it might be a long, 
long while before she could get home 
again to her little boy—who was all there 
was left her in the world. Her little 
Willy was being took care of by his 
grandmother, she said, and he was just 
his father’s own handsome self over again 
—and she got out her pocket-handker¬ 
chief and jammed it up to her eyes. 

Her left hand was lying in her lap, 
sort of casual, and the old gent got a-hold 
of it and said he didn’t know how to tell 
her how sorry he was for her. Talking 
from behind her pocket-handkerchief, she 
said such sympathy was precious; and 
then she went on, kind of pitiful, saying 


The Sage-brush Hen 25 

she s’posed her little Willy’d have forgot 
all about her before she’d get back to him 
—and she cried some more. Hill said 
she did it so well he was half took 
in himself for a minute, and felt so 
bad he went to licking and swearing at 
his mules. 

After a while she took a brace—get¬ 
ting down her pocket-handkerchief, and 
calling in the hand the old gent was 
a-holding—and said she must be brave, 
like her dear Captain ’d always been, so 
he’d see when he was a-looking at her 
from heaven she was doing the square 
thing. And as to having to wait around 
before she went East, she said, in one 
way it didn’t make any matter—seeing 
she’d be well cared for and comfortable 
at Palomitas staying in the house of the 
Baptist minister, who’d married her aunt. 

Hill said when she went to talking 
about Baptist ministers and aunts in 
Palomitas he shook so laughing inside 
he ’most fell off the box. Except the 
Mexican padre who belonged there—the 
one that made a record, and Bishop 
Lamy had to bounce—and sometimes the 
French one from San Juan, who was a 
good fellow and hadn’t a fly on him 
anywhere, there wasn’t a fire-escape ever 

showed himself in Palomitas; and as 

3 


26 


Harper's Novelettes 

to the ladies of the town—well, the ladies 
wasn’t just what you’d call the aunt 
kind. It’s a cold fact that that year 
when the end of the track stuck there 
Palomitas was about the cussedest town 
there was in the whole Territory—and 
so it was no more’n natural Hill should 
pretty near bust himself trying to hold 
in his laughing when the Hen took 
to talking so offhand about Palomitas 
and Baptist ministers and aunts. She 
felt how he was shaking, and jammed 
him hard with her elbow to keep him 
from letting his laugh out and giving 
her away. 

Hill said they’d got along to Pojuaque 
by the time the Hen had finished telling 
about herself, and the fix she was in 
because she had to wait along with her 
aunt in Palomitas till her transporta¬ 
tion come from Washington—and she 
just sick to get East and grab her little 
Willy in her arms. And the old gent 
was that interested in it all, Hill said, 
it was a sight to see how he went on. 

At Pojuaque the coach always made 
a noon stop, and the team was changed 
and the passengers eat lunch at old man 
Bouquet’s. He was a Frenchman, old 
man Bouquet was; but he’d been in the 
Territory from ’way back, and he’d got 


The Sage-brush Hen 27 

a nice garden round his house and fixed 
things up French style. His strongest 
hold was his wine-making. He made a 
first-class drink, as drinks of that sort 
go; and, for its kind, it was pretty strong. 
As his cooking was first class too. Hill’s 
passengers — and the other folks that 
stopped for grub there—always wanted 
to make a good long halt. 

The old gent. Hill said, knew how to 
talk French, and that made old man 
Bouquet extra obliging—and he set up 
a rattling good lunch and fetched out 
some of the wine he said he was in the 
habit of keeping for himself, seeing he’d 
got somebody in the house for once who 
really knew the difference between good 
and bad. He fixed up a table out in the 
garden—where he’d a queer tree, all 
growed together, he thought a heap of— 
and set down with ’em himself; and Hill 
said it was one of the pleasantest lunches 
he’d eat in all his life. 

The Hen and the old gent got friend¬ 
lier and friendlier—she being more cheer¬ 
ful when she’d been lunching a while, 
and getting to talking so comical she 
kept ’em all on a full laugh. Now and 
then, though, she’d pull up sudden and 
kind of back away—making out she did¬ 
n’t want it to show so much—and get 


28 


Harper’s Novelettes 


her pocket-handkerchief to her eyes and 
snuffle; and then she’d pull herself to¬ 
gether sort of conspicuous, and say she 
didn’t want to spoil the party, hut she 
couldn’t help thinking how long it was 
likely to he before she’d see her little 
hoy. And then the old gent would say 
that such tender motherliness did her 
credit, and hers was a sweet nature, and 
he’d hold her hand till she took it away. 

Hill said the time passed so pleasant 
he forgot how it was going, and when he 
happened to think to look at his watch 
he found he’d have to everlastingly hustle 
his mules to get over to Palomitas in 
time to ketch the Denver train. He went 
oif in a tearing hurry to hitch up, and 
old man Bouquet went along to help 
him—the old gent saying he guessed he 
and Mrs. Chiswick would stay setting 
where they was, it being cool and com¬ 
fortable in the garden, till the team was 
put to. They set so solid, Hill said, they 
didn’t hear him when he sung out to ’em 
he was ready; and he said he let his 
mouth go wide open and yelled like h—11. 
(Hill always talked that careless way. 
He didn’t mean no harm by it. He said 
it was just a habit he’d got into driving 
mules.) They not coming, he went to 
hurry ’em, he said—and as he come up 


The Sage-brush Hen 29 

behind ’em the Hen was stuffing some¬ 
thing into her frock, and the old gent 
was saying: “ I want you to get quickly 
to your dear infant, my daughter. You 
can return at your convenience my 
trifling loan. And now I will give you 
a fatherly kiss—” 

But he didn’t, Hill said—because the 
Hen heard Hill’s boots on the gravel and 
faced round so quick she spoiled his 
chance. He seemed a little jolted. Hill 
said; but the Hen was so cool, and talked 
so pleasant and natural about the good 
lunch they’d been having, and what a 
fine afternoon it was, he braced up and 
got to talking easy too. 

Then they all broke for the coach, and 
got away across the Tesuque River and 
on through the sand-hills—with Hill cut¬ 
ting away at his mules and using words 
to ’em fit to blister their hides, and when 
they fetched the Canada they were about 
up again to schedule time. After the 
Mexican who kept the Santa Cruz post- 
office had made the mess he always did 
with the mail matter, and had got the 
cussing he always got from Hill, they 
started off again—coming slow through 
that bit of extra-heavy road along by the 
Rio Grande, but getting to the deepo at 
Palomitas to ketch the Denver train. 


3° 


Harpers Novelettes 


All the way over from Pojuaque, Hill 
said, he could see out of the corner of 
his eye the old gent was nudging up to 
the Hen with his shoulder, friendly and 
sociable; and he said he noticed the Hen 
was a good deal less particular about 
making room. The old gent flushed up 
and got into a regular temper, Hill said, 
when Cherry sung out as they pulled 
into the deepo platform, “ Where’d you 
get your sage-brush hen from?”—and 
that way give her what stuck fast for 
her name. 

As it turned out, they might have kept 
on lunching as long as they’d a mind to 
at Pojuaque; and Hill might have let 
his mules take it easy, without tiring 
himself swearing at ’em, on a dead walk 
—there being a washout in the Comanche 
Canon, up above the Embudo, that held 
the train. It wasn’t much of a washout, 
the conductor said; but he said he guess¬ 
ed all hands would be more comfortable 
waiting at Palomitas, where there were 
things doing, than they would be setting 
still in the canon while the track gang 
finished their job—and he said he reck¬ 
oned the train wouldn’t start for about 
three hours. 

The Hen and the old gent was standing 
on the deepo platform, where they’d land- 


The Sage-brush Hen 31 

ed from the coach; and Hill said as he 
was taking his mails across to the express- 
car he heard him asking her once more 
if she hadn’t better come right along 
East to her lonely babe; and promising 
to take a father’s care of her all the way. 
The Hen seemed to be in two minds 
about it for a minute, Hill said; and then 
she thanked him, sweet as sugar, for his 
goodness to her in her time of trouble; 
and told him it would be a real comfort 
to go East with such a kind escort to 
take care of her—but she said it wouldn’t 
work, because she was expected in Palo- 
mitas, and not stopping there would be 
disappointing to her dear uncle and aunt. 

It was after sundown, and getting 
duskish, while they were talking; and she 
said she must be getting along. The old 
gent said he’d like to go with her; but 
she said he mustn’t think of it, as it was 
only a step to the parsonage and she 
knew the way. While he was keeping on 
telling her she really must let him see 
her safe with her relatives, up come Santa 
Fe Charley — and Charley sung out: 
“Hello, old girl,—so you’ve got here! I 
was looking for you on the coach, and I 
thought you hadn’t come.” 

Hill said he began to shake with laugh¬ 
ing, as he was sure it would be a dead 


3 2 


Harper's Novelettes 


give-away for her—Santa Fe being the 
dealer at the Forest Queen, and about 
the toughest tough there was in town. 
Charley didn’t look tough, though. He 
always dressed toney, all in black, with 
a long frock coat and a black felt hat 
—so he looked like he’d just come off 
Fifth Avenue—and a white tie. It helped 
him in his business, sometimes, dressing 
that way. 

Hill said the Hen give a little jump 
when he sung out to her, but she didn’t 
turn a hair. “ Dear Uncle Charley, I am 
so glad to see you!” she said—and went 
right on, speaking to the old gent: “ This 
is my uncle, the Baptist minister, sir, 
come to take me to the parsonage to my 
dear aunt. It’s almost funny to have 
so young an uncle. Aunt’s young too— 
you see, grandfather married a second 
time. We’re more like sister and brother 
—being so near of an age; and he always 
will talk to me free and easy, like he 
always did—though I tell him now he’s 
a minister it don’t sound well.” And then 
she whipped round to Charley, so quick 
he hadn’t time to get a word in edge¬ 
wise, and said to him: “ I hope Aunt 
Jane’s well, and didn’t have to go up to 
Denver—as she said she might in her 
last letter—to look after Cousin Mary. 


The Sage-brush Hen 33 

And I do hope you’ve finished the paint¬ 
ing she said was going on at the parson¬ 
age—so you can take me in there till my 
transportation comes and I can start 
East. This kind gentleman, who’s going 
up on to-night’s train, has been offering— 
and it’s just as good of him, even if I 
can’t go—to escort me home to my dear 
baby; and he’s been just full of sympa¬ 
thy over my dear husband Captain Chis¬ 
wick’s loss.” 

Hill said he never knew anybody take 
cards as quick as Santa Fe took the cards 
the Hen was giving him. “ I’m very 
happy to meet you, sir,” he said to the 
old gent; “ and most grateful to you for 
your kindness to my poor niece Rachel 
in her distress. We have been sorrowing 
over her during Captain Chiswick’s long 
and painful illness—” 

u My dear Captain had been sick for 
three months, and got out of his bed to 
go and be killed with his men by those 
dreadful Apaches,” the Hen cut in. 

“—and when the news came of the 
massacre,” Charley went right on, as cool 
as an iced drink, “ our hearts almost 
broke for her. Captain Chiswick was a 
splendid gentleman, sir; one of the finest 
officers ever sent out to this Territory. 
His loss is a bad thing for the Service; 


34 


Harper's Novelettes 


hut it is a worse thing for my poor niece 
—left forsaken with her sweet babes. 
They are noble children, sir; worthy of 
their noble sire!” 

“ Oh, Uncle Charley!” said the Hen. 
“ Didn’t you get my letter telling you my 
little Jane died of croup? I’ve only 
my little Willy, now!” And she kind 
of gagged. 

“ My poor child! My poor child!” said 
Santa Fe. “ I did not know that death 
had winged a double dart at you like 
that—your letter never came.” And then 
he said to the old gent: “ The mail service 
in this Territory, sir, is just about as bad 
as it can be. The government ought to 
be ashamed!” 

Hill said while they was giving it 
and taking it that way he ’most choked 
—particular as the old gent took it all 
down whole. 

Hill said the three of ’em was sort of 
quiet and sorrowful for a minute, and 
then Santa Fe said: “It is too bad, 
Rachel, but your aunt Jane did have to 
go up to Denver yesterday—a despatch 
came saying Cousin Mary’s taken worse. 
And the parsonage is in such a mess still 
with the painters that I’ve moved over 
to the Forest Queen Hotel. But you can 
come there too—it’s kept by an officer’s 


The Sage-brush Hen 


35 


widow, you know, and is most quiet and 
respectable—and you’ll be ’most as com¬ 
fortable waiting there till your trans¬ 
portation comes along as you would be 
if I could take you home.” 

Hill said hearing the Forest Queen 
talked about as quiet and respectable, and 
old Tenderfoot Sal, who kept it, called 
an officer’s widow, so set him to shaking 
he had to get to where there was a keg 
of railroad spikes and set down on it 
and hold his sides with both hands. 

Santa Fe turned to the old gent. Hill 
said— talking as polite as a Pullman con¬ 
ductor—and told him since he’d been so 
kind to his unhappy niece he hoped he’d 
come along with ’em to the hotel too— 
where he’d be more comfortable, Santa 
Fe said, getting something to eat and 
drink than he would be kicking around 
the deepo waiting till they’d filled in the 
washout and the train could start. 

Hill said the Hen gave Santa Fe a 
queer sort of look at that, as much as 
to ask him if he was dead sure he had 
the cards for that lead. Santa Fe gave 
her a look back again, as much as to say 
he knew what was and what wasn’t on 
the table; and then he went on to the 
old gent, speaking pleasant, telling him 
likely it might be a little bit noisy over 


36 Harper's Novelettes 

at the hotel—doing her best, he said, 
Mrs. Major Rogers couldn’t help having 
noise sometimes, things being so rough 
and tumble out there on the frontier; 
but he had a private room for his study, 
where he wrote his sermons, he said, and 
got into it by a side door—and so he 
guessed things wouldn’t be too bad. 

That seemed to make the Hen easy. 
Hill said; and away the three of ’em went 
together to the Forest Queen. Hill knew 
it was straight enough about the private 
room and the side door—Santa Fe had 
it to do business in for himself, on the 
quiet, when he didn’t have to deal; and 
Hill’d known of a good many folks who’d 
gone in that private room by that side 
door and hadn’t come out again till Santa 
Fe’d scooped their pile. But it wasn’t 
no business of his, he said; and he said 
he was glad to get shut of ’em so he might 
get the chance to let out the laughing 
that fairly was hurting his insides. 

As they were going away from the 
deepo, Hill said, he heard Santa Fe tell¬ 
ing the old gent he was sorry it was get¬ 
ting so dark—as he’d like to take him 
round so he could see the parsonage, and 
the new church they’d just finished build¬ 
ing and was going to put an organ in 
as soon as they’d raised more funds; but 


37 


The Sage-brush Hen 

it wasn’t worth while going out of their 
way, he said, because they wouldn’t show 
to no sort advantage with the light so 
bad. As the only church in Palomitas 
was the Mexican mud one about two 
hundred years old, and as the nearest 
thing to a parsonage was the padre’s 
house that Denver Jones had rented and 
had his faro-bank in, Hill said he guessed 
Charley acted sensible in not trying to 
show the old gent around that part of 
the town. 

Hill said after he’d got his supper he 
thought he’d come down to the deepo and 
sort of wait around there; on the chance 
he’d ketch on—when the old gent come 
over to the train—to what Santa Fe and 
the Hen’d been putting upon him. Sure 
enough, he did. 

Along about ten o’clock a starting order 
come down to the agent—the track gang 
by that time having the washout so near 
fixed it would be fit by the time the train 
got there to go across—and the agent 
sent word over to the Forest Queen to 
the old gent, who was the only Pullman 
passenger, he’d better be coming along. 

In five minutes or so he showed up. 
He wasn’t in the best shape, Hill said, 
and Santa Fe and the Hen each of ’em 
was giving him an arm; though what he 


38 


Harper's Novelettes 


seemed to need more’n arms, Hill said, 
was legs—the ones he had not being in 
first-class order and working bad. But he 
didn’t make no exhibition of himself, 
and talked right enough—only that he 
spoke sort of short and scrappy—and the 
three of ’em was as friendly together as 
friendly could be. Hill said he didn’t 
think it was any hurt to listen, things 
being the way they were, and he edged 
up close to ’em—while they stood waiting 
for the porter to light up the Pullman— 
and though he couldn’t quite make sense 
of all they was saying he did get on to 
enough of it to size up pretty close how 
they’d put the old gent through. 

“ Although it is for my struggling 
church, a weak blade of grass in the 
desert,” Santa Fe was saying when Hill 
got the range of ’em, “I cannot but re¬ 
gret having taken from you your splen¬ 
did contribution to our parish fund in 
so unusual, I might almost say in so un¬ 
seemly a way. That I have returned to 
you a sufficient sum to enable you to 
prosecute your journey to its conclusion 
places you under no obligation to me. 
Indeed, I could not have done less— 
considering the very liberal loan that you 
have made to my poor niece to enable 
her to return quickly to her helpless babe. 


The Sage-brttsh Hen 39 

As I hardly need tell you, that loan will 
be returned promptly—as soon as Mrs. 
Captain Chiswick gets East and is able 
to disentangle her affairs.” 

“ Indeed it will,” the Hen put in. 
“ My generous benefactor shall be squared 
with if I have to sell my clothes!” 

“ Mustn’t think of such a thing. Catch 
cold,” the old gent said. “Pleasure’s all 
mine to assist such a noble woman in 
her unmerited distress. And now I shall 
have happiness, and same time sorrow, 
to give her fatherly kiss for farewell.” 

The Hen edged away a little, Hill said, 
and Santa Fe shortened his grip a little 
on the old gent’s arm—so his fatherly 
kissing missed fire. But he didn’t seem 
to notice, and said to Santa Ee: “Never 
knew a minister know cards like you. 
Wonderful! And wonderful luck what 
you held. Played cards a good deal my¬ 
self. Never could play like you!” 

Santa Ee steadied the old gent. Hill 
said, and said to him in a kind of ex¬ 
plaining way: “As I told you, my dear 
sir, in my wild college days—before I 
got light on my sinful path and headed 
for the ministry—I was reckoned some¬ 
thing out of the common as a card- 
player, and what the profane call luck 
used to be with me all the time. Of 


40 


Harpers Novelettes 


course, since I humbly—but, I trust, help¬ 
fully—took to being a worker in the vine¬ 
yard, I have not touched those devil’s 
picture-books; nor should I have touched 
them to-night but for my hope that a 
little game would help to while away 
your time of tedious waiting. As for 
playing for money, that would have been 
quite impossible if it had not been for 
my niece’s suggestion that my winnings 
—in case such came to me—should be 
added to our meagre parish fund. I 
trust that I have not done wrong in 
yielding to my impulse. At least I have 
to sustain me the knowledge that if you, 
my dear sir, are somewhat the worse, 
my impoverished church is much the 
better for our friendly game of chance.” 

Hill said hearing Santa Be Charley 
talking about chance in any game where 
he had the dealing was so funny it was 
better’n going to the circus. But the old 
gent took it right enough—and the Hen 
added on: “ Yes, Uncle Charley can get 
the organ he’s been wanting so badly for 
his church, now. And I’m sure we’ll all 
think of how we owe its sweet music to 
you every time we hear it played!”—and 
she edged up to him again, so he could 
hold her hand. “ It must make you very, 
very happy, sir,” she kept on, speaking 


The Sage-brush Hen 41 

kind of low and gentle, but not coming 
as close as he wanted her, u to go about 
the world doing such generous-hearted 
good deeds! I’m sure I’d like to thank 
you enough—only there isn’t any fit words 
to thank you in—for your noble-hearted 
generous goodness to me!” 

The old gent hauled away on her hand. 
Hill said, trying to get her closer, and 
said back to her: “ Words quite unneces¬ 
sary. Old man’s heart filled with pleas¬ 
ure obliging such dear child. Never mind 
about words. Accept old man’s fatherly 
kiss, like daughter, for good-by.” 

But he missed it that time too, Hill 
said—and Hill said, speaking in his care¬ 
less cuss-word way, it was pretty d—n 
rough on him what poor luck in fatherly 
kisses he seemed to have—because just 
then the train-conductor swung his lan¬ 
tern and sung out, u All aboard!” 

That ended things. Before the old 
gent knew what had got him, Santa Fe 
and the Hen had boosted him up the steps 
on to the platform of the Pullman— 
where the Pullman conductor got a grip 
on him just in time to save him from 
spilling—and then the train pulled out: 
with the Pullman conductor keeping him 
steady, and he throwing back good-by 

kisses to the Hen with both hands. 

4 


42 


Harpers Novelettes 


Hill said tlie Hen and Santa Fe kept 
qniet till the hind lights showed beyond 
the end of the deepo platform: and then 
the Hen grabbed Santa Fe round the 
neck and just hung on to him—so full 
of laugh she was limp—while they both 
roared. And Hill said he roared too. It 
was the most comical bit of business, he 
said, he’d tumbled to in all his born days I 

It wasn’t until the train got clear 
round the curve above the station. Hill 
said, that Charley and the Hen could 
pull ’emselves together so they could talk. 
Then the Hen let a-go of Santa Fe’s 
neck and said comical—speaking kind of 
precise and toney, like as if she was an 
officer’s wife sure enough: “ You’d better 
return to your study, dear Uncle Charles, 
and finish writing that sermon you said 
we’d interrupt you in about caring for 
the sheep as well as the lambs!” 

And then they went off together yell¬ 
ing, Hill said, over to the Forest Queen. 


A Madonna of the Desert 


BY ELIA W. PEATTIE 



HE “Dancers” trip it for twenty- 


miles along the Mojave Desert— 


grotesque forms in red lava rock, 
fixed in a horrible static saraband. The 
trail to Camp Crowe leads through this 
mocking company and takes its name 
from them, though for the last twenty- 
five miles it emerges from the “ Ball 
Room ” and climbs a dun mesa which 
terminates in a fortresslike outcropping 
of quartz, which is at once the lure 
and the shelter of the men who live at 
its base. 

On a certain March day in 1899 the 
overland stopped at San Miguel—an al¬ 
most unprecedented event—and let off 
two passengers. The man was lifted 
down carefully by the train crew. The 
woman, forgetful of self, neglected the 
casual hand of the porter, offered for 
her assistance. 

“ Well, ma’am,” said the conductor, 


44 


Harper's Novelettes 


“ there’s the wagon to meet you. I 
swear, that takes a burden off my mind. 
Now you’re all right, ma’am; though I 
do hate to leave you here among them 
blamed Dancers. Here’s the man to meet 
you, ma’am. And I’m thankful you got 
through without any—any accident.” 

He gave a swift clasp to the woman’s 
hand and swung on the slow-moving 
train. Her companion sat on the embank¬ 
ment, leaning against her, as she waved 
a farewell to the men who had helped her 
through her long and cruel journey, and 
then turned to greet the driver of the 
wagon her husband’s cousin had sent 
from Camp Crowe. The supply-wagon 
was visible a little way off, hitched to 
four “ clay - bank ” mules — creatures 
which suited their environment in every 
respect, and at a comparatively short 
distance melted completely into the 
monochrome of the desert. The driver 
of the wagon had a stretcher with him, 
as if quite prepared for the helplessness 
of his passenger. He and the woman 
carried the sick man to the wagon, the 
man on the stretcher saving his strength 
in every way. He did not so much as 
trouble himself to look around, but had 
the air of one who guards a very precious 
thing and cannot afford to have his at- 


A Madonna of the Desert 45 


tention diverted. He did, indeed, guard 
the one thing that money, science, and 
faith cannot supply—the light of life, 
which flickered low in its socket and 
which a breath would extinguish. 

The woman had a voice both cheerful 
and clear, and as she staggered along 
over the rough embankment, carrying 
her end of the stretcher, she said: 

“ It’s such a relief to find you here 
waiting! When I was told that the 
train never stopped here at San Miguel's 
unless it was signalled I realized what 
a deserted place it must be, and I won¬ 
dered what we would do if you didn’t 
happen to be here on time.” 

“ The hull camp was worryin’ fur fear 
I wouldn't git here,” admitted the man. 
“An’ Hank Crowe wanted to send an¬ 
other man with me, but I knew he could¬ 
n’t well spare one. I said to him I 
calkilated a woman that would come out 
to this place, an’ leave her baby an’ all, 
would git up spunk enough to help me 
with the stretcher.” 

His kind glance met hers and seemed 
to applaud her as they stumbled over the 
uneven ground with their light load. 

“ But is there no man at all at San 
Miguel’s?” she asked. 

“ None to speak of,” said the other. 


46 


Harper's Novelettes 


They had reached the wagon with its 
covering of white canvas, and Sandy 
Rich slipped the stretcher adroitly in 
its place. He went back for the trunks 
and hampers which had been thrown off, 
while the woman gave her attention to 
the invalid. 

“Air you goin’ to set inside?” he 
asked, “ or will you git up on the driver’s 
seat with me? I put in a foldin’-chair 
so’s you could stay inside if you wanted.” 

Claudia Judic looked questioningly at 
her husband. 

“I’m feeling very well,” he whispered, 
still with the air of guarding that un¬ 
speakably precious thing. “ Sit outside, 
Claudia.” 

“ You see,” said Rich, under his breath, 
as they walked around to the front of 
the wagon together, “ there is another 
man here. He’s the agent of the sta¬ 
tion yon, and he does the telegraphing. 
But it wouldn’t do for Mr. Judic to see 
him! He’s a scarecrow—come out here 
six months ago much in the same way 
Mr. Judic is now. He’s doing fine, but 
it wouldn’t have done to have him carry- 
in’ that stretcher. It would ’a’ scared 
Mr. Judic outright at the start. I went 
to him and said, ‘ Hull, don’t you so much 
as stick your head out of the door.’ ” 


A Madonna of the Desert 47 


“Poor fellow!” said the woman. 

“ Who ? Hull ? Oh, he’s all right. 
Hull ain’t the sort that frets about a 
missin’ lung or two. There he is now!” 

Claudia looked over where the dark- 
red station-house squatted in a patch 
of green, which lay like an emerald in 
the dull gold of the desert. A slender 
young man stood at the side waving 
a handkerchief. 

“Does he want something?” she asked. 

“Hull? No. That’s his way of say in’ 
‘ good luck.’ ” 

“Oh!” said Claudia Judic. She 
snatched her own handkerchief from her 
belt and fluttered the white signal. The 
desert, which a moment before had seem¬ 
ed limitless and alien, already showed 
signs of neighborliness. 

They had been talking almost in whis¬ 
pers, but now she spoke aloud. 

“ Pve just given him his milk and his 
stimulants,” she said, looking hack in the 
wagon from the seat to which she had 
with some difficulty attained, and speak¬ 
ing as women do in hours of wifely anx¬ 
iety, as if there were but one being in 
the world entitled to the masculine pro¬ 
noun. “For half an hour, at least, I 
think he will be safe. It takes us a very 
long time to reach the Camp, I suppose ?” 


48 Harper's Novelettes 

Eich said nothing for a second or 
two. He gathered the reins in his hands 
and chirruped low to his animals. Six¬ 
teen stanch legs stretched forth in uni¬ 
son, and with a curious, soft, steady 
movement the wagon began to whirl along 
the desert. Claudia Judic thought she 
had never experienced a more delight¬ 
ful motion. 

“ They’re as smooth as silk, them 
mules,” said Eich, referring to the loco¬ 
motive qualities of the excellent beasts 
and not to their mottled skins of cream 
and tan. “ And though it is a good way 
to Camp, we’ll git there as safe an’ as 
quick as the critters ken git us.” 

“ Well,” said Claudia, in a tone of 
resignation, u it seems as if things were 
going to come out right. I can’t help 
feeling it. And, anyway, I’ve done all 
I could.” 

“ Yes’m,” said Eich, with conviction, 
“ I’ll bet you have.” 

From time to time he stole a glance 
at the woman by his side. She was a 
small creature with a delicate face, 
sweetly featured and tinted. Her eyes 
were a soft brown; the brows above them 
were rather highly arched, and the lashes 
long. Her ears were pink and small; 
her brown hair, touched with gold, curled 


A Madonna of the Desert 49 

about her ears and waved on her brow 
in filmy bannerets. She sat soldier- 
straight, but she was full of impulsive 
and graceful motions, and when she 
turned—as she did every moment or two 
—to look at the prone figure within the 
wagon, there was something so protecting 
and efficient in her look and gesture that 
Rich felt if “ anything happened ” she 
would meet it with courage. He had 
been warned that something might hap¬ 
pen. At the Camp they were under the 
impression that he had gone out to meet 
a dying man. James Judio was the cousin 
of Henry Crowe, owner and promoter of 
Crowe’s Mine, and of the cyanide plant 
which made marketable its economical 
product, and Crowe had offered the sick 
man his last chance for life in extending 
to him the hospitality of the desert. ' 
Every half-hour the mules were reined 
in while the sick man was given food 
and stimulants. He seldom spoke, and 
his eyes had that lonely and forbidding 
look which comes to those who stand at 
the beginning of the Long Trail. His 
wife spoke to him as if ho were a child. 
She used a tone of command, for all her 
tenderness. She was the directress of his 
destiny, and unconsciously she suited 
voice and action to the part. 


50 Harpers Novelettes 

Claudia was almost childishly amused 
at the “ dancers,” and when she came 
to two that stood apparently with lifted 
skirts, toes pointed high and arms poised 
above the head, she laughed outright. 

“I believe it does me good to laugh,” 
she said, piteously, clasping and un¬ 
clasping her hands. “ I never would 
have dared to do it if the place weren’t 
so large. There’s no use in keeping shut 
up in your trouble in such a big place 
as this!” 

She took in the vast wild, the arching 
heavens, the flight of a proud eagle, with 
her sad and gentle eyes. 

“No use on yearth!” agreed Mr. Rich. 
“I say nothin’ was ever any better for 
pullin’ a long face over it. We may as 
well whoop it up while we’re on this 
yearth below.” He said it with a twang 
that seemed to give it a Scriptural turn. 

The wind blowing over the desert was 
cool and refreshing. The gray-green 
flora of the waste mitigated the expanse 
of sand, and here and there a few pinons 
cluttered, or a patch of alfileria grew. 
The distance was lilac, the sky a cloud¬ 
less sapphire. 

“ It doesn’t look so terrible,” said 
Claudia Judic. “I had always thought 
the desert would be very terrible.” 


A Madonna of the Desert 51 


“It gits riled,” said Rich. “But I 
never saw none so ugly they was riled 
all the time.” 

Mrs. Judic laughed lightly. 

“ That’s true enough,” she said, and 
settled her feet on the dashboard. She 
was ready, evidently, to accept both the 
comforts and the philosophy of the place. 
She had left behind her the freshly 
weaned babe of her love and all the 
friends of her native town; left behind 
the snug home-life, the ease which had 
always been hers. She had set out to 
race and to struggle with Death, and she 
was nerved to the contest. She had no 
thought and no hope that did not relate 
to it. 

“It’s a pity,” said Rich, as they ate 
together from the lunch-basket he had 
spread between them on the high seat, 
“ that you couldn’t ’a’ brought your baby. 
Hank Crowe was tellin’ me how you had 
to leave it behind. I said to him I 
thought that was mighty tough.” 

“ Oh,” said Mrs. Judic, with a catch 
in her throat, “ I couldn't bring him. 
He was just six months old the very day 
the doctor told me that if I wanted to 
keep Mr. Judic alive I’d have to take 
him to another climate. You see, Mr. 
Judic couldn’t go alone. He depends on 


5 2 


Harpers Novelettes 


me so. About one-tenth, of him is body 
and all the rest is spirit, you may say. 
The doctor—old Doctor Reynolds that 
we’ve always had—said if I sent him off 
alone he was as good as doomed. I had 
to hold James in my arms a good part 
of the way here. TIis vitality was so 
low I was afraid he might—might go, 
and I not know it. You see, I simply 
couldn’t bring the baby.” 

She looked at the man with an ex¬ 
pression at once wistful and defensive. 

“ Oh pshaw, no!” he cried. “ What 
could you ’a’ done with a baby?” 

“ I just gave him over to Mother 
Judic,” said she. “ Mother has such a 
nice little home, with a beautiful yard 
and all. And all the neighbors are in¬ 
terested in Jamie. He’s a very healthy 
baby, and he’s quick to make friends— 
holds out his hands to every one and is 
forever laughing. His hair is the bright¬ 
est yellow I ever saw. You’d think it 
was spun gold if you were to see it in the 
sun, and there’s a dimple at every finger 
and one at each knee and elbow,—besides, 
of course, those in his cheeks.” 

“Must be as full of holes as a sieve,” 
laughed Rich, rather huskily. 

“You never had a baby, I suppose, 
Mr. Rich?” 


A Madonna of the Desert 53 

“ Who ? Me ? Oh, thunder! yes. I’ve 
had a kid. Dead, though. Mother dead 
too. His mother was part Mojave—part 
Indian, you know. But she was a good 
woman. And the kid—he was all right 
too. We had a smallpox summer here 
once and—” 

“ I see a ” said Claudia Judic, softly. 
“ And your hoy—how old was he V 9 

“Why, he was three. He was mighty 
cute, too,—used to pretend help me hitch 
up, and ’d ride with me everywhere. I 
was doin’ haulin’ for the old Bona- 
venture mine then. I just quit and come 
away after he was gone. It was too all- 
fired lonesome; I couldn’t stand it.” 

“ Ho,” said the woman, softly. They 
drove on for some time in silence, each 
absorbed in his own thoughts. The breath¬ 
ing of the sick man came to them heavily. 

“ It’s a long way yet, I suppose,” said 
Mrs. Judic. 

“ Oh, not so far,” heartened the other, 
and whipped his mules into a faster run. 
The woman’s small hands were clasped 
in her lap, and Rich could see that her 
whole being was at a tension. She was 
listening, body and soul, to that labored 
breathing. She had asked her husband 
a dozen times if he wanted her to hold 
his head or sit by him, but he had more 


54 


Harper's Novelettes 


air, he said, if he had the whole space 
to himself. There was air enough, sure¬ 
ly—air sweeping out of the lilac distance, 
quivering visibly on the horizon, tossing 
the finer sand in soft hillocks. From 
time to time Mrs. Judic gave her hus¬ 
band whiskey and water from a flask, but 
betweentimes she used all of her self- 
control to feign indifference. It annoyed 
him, she feared, to be the constant sub¬ 
ject of attentions. 

At twilight they reached the Camp. 
It was a group of tents set in the sand. 
A cold and beautiful spring bubbled up 
out of the ground and trickled away in 
a small rivulet. In the shadow of the 
Fortress, as the rock was called, stood 
the cyanide plant, with its fresh pine 
sides—an ungainly edifice. 

There was a new tent set apart among 
a group of pinons, with its door opening 
to the expanse of the desert. Rich 
pointed it out. 

“ That’s your home, ma’am,” he said. 
“No front steps to scrub, you see.” He 
did not drive up to the tent, but kept 
on the road and stopped before a hitch- 
ing-post. 

“I ain’t goin’ to cut your yard all 
up,” he explained. 

Their approach had been silent, and 


A Madonna of the Desert 55 


the men,, who were at supper in the 
eating-tent, had not heard their arrival. 

“ The dogs usually let folk know when 
there’s anything doin’,” said Rich, “but 
this time we’ve fooled them.” 

In the dim interior of the wagon they 
could make out the sick man lying mo¬ 
tionless. His eyes were closed, his breath 
feeble, his hands shut in a curious grip. 

Rich started back from the wagon, but 
Mrs. Judic gave a reassuring whisper. 

“ He’s just holding on to himself,” 
she said. “Let them know he’s here, 
and tell them to bring something hot 
—coffee or soup.” 

A moment later the men came pouring 
out of the eating-tent. They were silent, 
having evidently been warned against a 
commotion. At their head walked Henry 
Crowe, Judic’s cousin. He strode up to 
Claudia, looking gigantic in the twi¬ 
light, and grasped her hand in awk¬ 
ward congratulation. 

“ Well, you got here l” he said, sig¬ 
nificantly. 

He had made the Judies’ tent com¬ 
fortable in soldier fashion, with two cots 
covered with gray blankets, a table, some 
folding-stools, a stove, and a wash-stand. 
He and Rich carried in the sick man. 
The Chinese cook came running along in 


Harpers Novelettes 


5 6 

the windy dusk bearing a tray of hot 
food, and Claudia threw off her hat to 
make ready to feed her husband. At 
the end of an hour he was sleeping com¬ 
fortably. Then she stood up and wiped 
the perspiration from her face. 

“ Come,” Crowe whispered. “ Come 
over and get something to eat. One of 
the men will look after James.” 

She obeyed without a word, and Crowe 
sent one of the men to keep watch till 
her return. 

“ Well,” said Henry Crowe, suiting his 
pace to hers as they crossed the camp- 
yard, “I like your way of doing things, 
Claudia. If James lives, I guess he’ll 
know where to put the blame. I always 
knew you had sentiment, but I wasn’t 
so sure you had sense. I thought perhaps 
you were too sweet to have any sense.” 

His cousin’s wife looked up wanly. 

“ Oh, Henry,” she laughed, “ how 
queer it sounds to have any one talking 
about me! I’ve almost forgotten that 
I existed. It’s been so horrible about 
James, and it was such torture for his 
mother to part with him, and every one 
has been so wondering how the baby 
would get on and if it would live, that 
I’ve ceased to have any life except 
through these others.” 


A Madonna of the Desert 57 

Crowe seated her at the table and 
waited on her, even cutting 1 the bread 
from the loaf. 

“ That’s all right, too,” he said, heart¬ 
ily. “ You’ve been living, Claudia! 
Some of us couldn’t care that much about 
any one if we wanted to, and if we did 
care we’d never know how to think of 
anybody but ourselves.” 

As Claudia Judic ate the coarse food 
of the camp, washing the meal down with 
the hot, grateful tea, she thought of her 
cousin’s words. Perhaps this labor, this 
consuming anxiety, this utter sub¬ 
mergence of self, was life. Maybe it 
was a privilege—this responsibility, this 
midnight flow of tears, this relinquish¬ 
ment of delight! She fell to thinking 
of her wedding romance, of the days of 
joy and service and of pleasant neigh¬ 
borly offices and domestic tasks, of her 
first home-keeping and all the pleasures 
of that placid, useful, wholesome time. 
Then came the revelation of Jamie, the 
child of her heart, and, suddenly, as his 
father and herself worked and loved and 
planned together, brooding over the child, 
building for it, and nurtured with the 
sweet food of content, James had been 
stricken down. Had he been a heartier 

man, the physician said, he would have 

s 


5 » 


Harper's Novelettes 


died. As it was, he hung somewhere 
between life and death, and fared forth 
neither way. Then came the period of 
horrible waiting, while the soul and the 
mind of the sick man grew torpid, while 
all planning and initiative devolved upon 
her, so unexperienced and untrained, and 
their small store dwindled, and the dread 
of want overtook them. 

She looked up suddenly, remembering 
where she was. Not far from her, in a 
corner, her cousin sat smoking his pipe. 
Six feet and two inches in height, with 
his sand-colored khaki, yellow leggings, 
and his sun-bleached hair, he was typical 
of the West of which Claudia had 
dreamed—dreaming not so much with 
anticipation as with dread. 

“ You’ll sleep well to-night,” said her 
cousin, “ and in the morning we’ll talk 
things over. I don’t say James’s pros¬ 
pects are bright, but I say he has a 
fighting chance! As for you—” 

Claudia Judic held up a fragile hand 
on which glittered her diamond engage¬ 
ment-ring, and the plain gold band that 
James Judic had placed on that slender 
finger on a yet more significant occasion. 

“ Don’t speak of me!” she cried, with 
a kind of gayety. “ I—I think I’d rather 
talk of anything else.” 


A Madonna of the Desert 59 

They went out-of-doors together and 
paced up and down the sands, talking 
of their friends and neighbors back in 
Craven, Iowa. Crowe wanted to say 
something about the baby, but she 
avoided that subject, and turned him 
from it whenever he approached it. So, 
after a time, he left her at her tent. He 
paced up and down at a distance for a 
while, watching her as she made prepara¬ 
tions to care for the sick man during the 
night. She had not asked to have any 
one near her, had expressed no fear of the 
black waste without her door, had not even 
so much as inquired if there were wild 
animals or prowling Indians. There were 
both, in fact, but the men at Camp Crowe 
took their chances even as men in the 
city take theirs, with the expectation 
that disaster will come to other men, but 
not to themselves. After a while she 
let down the flap of her tent. She was 
ready for the night'—the night which 
would bring her little refreshment and 
many interruptions. 

And when, the next morning, she came 
early from her tent, hollow-eyed, but smi¬ 
ling, and went to breakfast with the rest, 
she was accepted as part and parcel of 
Camp Crowe. The men accepted her, 
liked her pluck, her reserve, the coura- 


6o 


Harper’s Novelettes 


geous cheerfulness of her voice. The des¬ 
ert accepted her, and tanned her delicate 
skin and took the brilliant gloss from 
her hair, nourished her limbs and 
strengthened her spirit. The day and 
night accepted her and gave her work 
and rest. She worked more hours than 
any man in the Camp, but she had a pow¬ 
er of recuperation that none of the rest 
had. While they plodded along the sand, 
she tripped; when they gloomed, she 
laughed. It was not a laugh which 
sprang from gayety, for there was noth¬ 
ing to inspire that. It was the maternal 
laugh—the laugh the brave spirit makes 
to hearten those about it. And from the 
first she assumed maternal responsibilities 
in the Camp. She began by looking 
after her husband’s cousin, but present¬ 
ly she was looking after every one—even 
Li Chung, the Chinese cook. 

For the first two months her husband’s 
destiny hung in doubt. It was a gam¬ 
bling crowd at Crowe’s Camp, but no one 
was taking chances on James Judic’s life. 
Then, almost in a day it seemed, he began 
to walk up and down outside his tent 
in the morning sun, and to wonder what 
the mail would bring, and to laugh at 
the songs the men sang. After this his 
improvement was rapid, and presently 


A Madonna of the Desert 61 


lie was given small tasks to do about the 
camp, and Henry Crowe consulted him 
on business. He had a head for busi¬ 
ness, and his practical training in a 
bank made it easy for him to assume 
the responsibilities of the bookkeeping 
and the correspondence for the Crowe 
Mining Company. 

At the end of six months he began to 
feel himself established there, in a way. 
He was still far from strong, and it was 
impossible for him to make even moderate 
excursions. But he was comfortable; he 
slept and ate well, and his spirits were 
good. He began to develop a taste for 
the life, and left Claudia much alone 
while he sat with the men, listening to 
their stories or their songs, or taking a 
hand with them at poker. 

Something curious had befallen James 
Judie in that strange twilight of exist¬ 
ence when he hung between life and 
death. His soul had somehow divested 
itself of conscientiousness, and he had 
shuffled off responsibility. He fell into 
the way of living for the hour, of avoid¬ 
ing thought of the future, and it was 
evident that he regarded the past as a 
time of heavy burdens. He seldom re¬ 
ferred to it, seldom spoke of his mother 
or his child. He seemed, in the revival 


62 


Harper's Novelettes 


of animal life that had come to him, to 
find sufficient satisfaction in the mere 
facts of sun, wind, sleep, food, laughter, 
and converse. He had preserved that un¬ 
speakably precious thing which he had 
clutched with eager hands. It was his. 
He lived. To-day was to-day; all that 
went before was with yesterday’s seven 
thousand years, and to-morrow was an 
unknown quantity. 

Claudia had begun to take up other 
tasks. She went into the kitchen at least 
once a day to direct the cooking, and she 
often prepared dishes with her own hands, 
transforming the table by these ministra¬ 
tions. She kept Henry Crowe’s tent in 
a condition of exquisite cleanliness, and 
if any of the men required to have a 
needle used they came to her, sure of 
gracious service. She was a practical 
and an honest woman, and she gave 
these offices in reciprocity for the hos¬ 
pitality which she received—hospitality 
for which she could make no other re¬ 
turn. James paid his way by his book¬ 
keeping—paid it and more,—and after a 
time Crowe recognized this fact and gave 
him a stated stipend. How much it was 
Claudia did not know, for she never saw 
any of it. 

It is wonderful how Time can cheat 


A Madonna of the Desert 63 


the unwary. In this little sequestered 
community, where each day was like the 
last, where no events of importance dis¬ 
turbed the trivial usualness, the weeks 
and the months slipped by like beads 
on a string. The gray djinn of the waste 
are wizards and mesmerize the soul. At 
least every one seemed sordidly content, 
though the mine gave small profits, and 
nothing occurred to justify the sacrifice 
represented by this isolation. 

There was but one member of the 
party who was actively discontented, and 
that was the one who habitually spoke 
words of content. Claudia Judic, as has 
been said, had no thought at first but 
to spend herself for her husband. She 
was consumed with the desire to see him 
well. It was as if she hung over a pit, 
holding him from the abyss with her 
fragile arms. But when she had lifted 
him, when he stood at the rim—though, 
perchance, somewhat too near the sheer 
dark edge — her generic maternity re¬ 
curred to something more specific. She 
began to remember the babe she had left 
thousands of miles behind. Not but that 
she had always remembered him in a 
sense. A child is always in a mother’s 
mind, furnishing the substructure of 
thought and feeling. Or, to speak with 


64 


Harper's Novelettes 


clearer simile, the voice of the child is 
forever audible to the mother; it is the 
fundamental, ever-present harmony, and 
as the diapason of the sea lies behind 
the other harmonies of nature, making 
the voices of the wind, the cries of men, 
birds, and trees but accessories, so the 
sounds of the world relate themselves to 
the voice of the child in the heart’s-ear 
of the mother. This consciousness had 
always been Claudia’s. But now more 
definite longing came to her. She was 
ready for her babe, and therefore her 
being cried out for him. Nor was it 
alone her spirit that made this demand, 
nor yet merely that she might learn how 
he had grown in thought, what words 
came to his lips, what expectations and 
fears looked out of his heaven-blue eyes. 
It was these things, truly, but it was 
much more. Her whole body desired him. 
The passion of the lover for his mistress 
is a little thing compared to this mater¬ 
nal hunger. Her arms ached, literally, 
to clasp him, her shoulders ached to bear 
his weight, her feet ached to run in his 
service; her eyes were hot for want of 
beholding him. At night she dreamed 
she felt him tugging at her long hair, 
or nestling his satin-soft and dimpled 
hand in her bosom. 


A Madonna of the Desert 65 

She did not dare to speak. More than 
ever James needed her. His health would 
have deserted him with his first week’s 
residence in a less arid climate, and there 
were other than physical reasons why 
she now felt she must remain with him. 
She set herself against the atmosphere of 
the camp, contriving this thing and that 
to keep her husband with her after work- 
hours, and pouring her love upon him 
like a libation. She gave so freely that 
she did not realize that she was giving, 
and neither, indeed, did James. He took 
her devotion as he did the sunshine, not 
analyzing the cause of his elasticity of 
heart, nor, perhaps, understanding it. It 
is not the way with most men to notice 
the presence of happiness, but only the 
absence of it. 

“It’s a free life,” he would say to 
his wife. “ I never dreamed, Claudia, 
till we came here, how free life could be. 
I wouldn’t go back to the conventionali¬ 
ties and restraints for anything that 
could be given me. Oh, if I had my 
health, of course, it might be different I 
But as it is, this is the life for me.” 

It never seemed to occur to him that she 
wanted to go back. And she knew there 
was not enough money with which to pay 
for that long journey. They were all but 


66 


Harper's Novelettes 


penniless. Such small investment as they 
had—and it was only a few hundred dol¬ 
lars—Claudia had placed at the disposal 
of her mother-in-law to use for the child. 
She was much too proud to ask her 
husband’s cousin for any money, and, 
indeed, he had hard enough work at 
times to pay off his men and purchase 
the supplies. 

It was not oftener than once a fort¬ 
night that the wagon was sent for the 
mail. Then it went the forty miles to 
San Miguel and ten miles beyond, fol¬ 
lowing along the railroad to the town of 
Santa Cerro, where there was a supply- 
store as well as a post-office. The hour of 
return was always uncertain. The men 
were sent turn and turn about, that they 
might have the taste of the pleasures of 
the town, and if these proved particu¬ 
larly enticing, the return of the wagon 
might be delayed a good many hours, 
sometimes even a day or two. Such 
dereliction as this met with general dis¬ 
approbation, it is true, but it was looked 
upon in the light of an accident, which 
the man who had lapsed from the path 
of rectitude and punctuality regarded 
with almost as much regret as did his 
fellow campers. 

Mail-days became active torture to 


A Madonna of the Desert 67 

Claudia Judic. She would await with 
tense expectation the appearance upon the 
horizon of the dusty “ schooner ” drawn 
by its four “ clay-bank ” mules. For¬ 
tunately her tent stood farthest desert- 
ward, and sitting at her door she could 
see for five miles down the level floor of 
the mesa. Certain days she could see 
even farther. She had a remarkable 
sight, and the desert life sharpened it. 
She could pick out a bird that others 
could not see, could catch its wings 
glinting in the sun in the burning sap¬ 
phire; note the distant movements of 
the prairie-dogs and catch the flick of 
the rabbit’s tail when none but herself 
could detect them. Sometimes for hours 
she sat with her eyes focussed on the most 
distant visible part of the dusty mesa. 
But the most terrible moment of all, per¬ 
haps, was when the wagon was entering 
camp. She was suspicious if the driver 
chanced to withhold his gaze from her, 
imagining that he had no letter and was 
loath to confess it; if he signalled her 
with his glance, she was equally certain 
it was from pity, and that he had come 
letterless. She felt like shrieking with 
impatience while she stood among the 
others, commanding her face to impassiv¬ 
ity, till the letters were handed round. 


68 


Harper's Novelettes 


It was taken for granted that nothing 
was to be done by any one till that cere¬ 
mony was over. Men were excused from 
their work, meals stood uneaten, every¬ 
thing waited for this event. 

A yet more poignant instant came 
when the letter was actually in her hand. 
She could not bring herself to read it 
before the others, and often she could 
hardly summon the strength to walk 
away with it to her tent. Then, alone, 
she hesitated to tear it open, and would 
compel herself to the nice use of her pen¬ 
knife, opening the letter properly. At 
the first reading she could understand 
nothing. Her eyes would eat up the 
words, which conveyed no meaning to her. 
All was as confused as if it had been 
written in a foreign tongue. But she 
would discipline herself to patience and 
to perception, and slowly, word by word, 
like a child learning to read, she would 
follow her mother-in-law's small, neat 
chirography through the closely writ¬ 
ten pages. 

Usually the letters were filled with 
anecdotes of Jamie—he had teeth like 
grains of rice; he was running around 
the yard alone; he was talking, and there 
would be an attempt to reproduce his 
speeches. Now he had had some esca- 


A Madonna of the Desert 69 

pade, now some unusual pleasure; or he 
was indisposed with a cold, or he had a 
new Sunday frock, or his grandmother 
had bought him some toys. The reports 
were minute and merciful. Across the 
jealousy which a woman feels for a 
son’s wife the mother - bond spanned, 
making the old mother compassionate to 
the young one. She actually refrained 
from telling all the child’s loveliness and 
cleverness lest she should cause unneces¬ 
sary torture. She tried to think of ways 
in which Claudia could contrive to come 
back for a visit; she apologized for not 
being able, physically or financially, to 
bring the child out to Camp Crowe. 

It was in the second year that Claudia 
began to lay a plan. She had accustomed 
herself to the idea that if her husband 
was to live at all he must stay where 
he was. He was making himself useful, 
and his income was now of some account. 
Claudia began to ask him for a little 
each week, and this she scrupulously put 
away. She was nest-building, and once 
the idea seized her, it became an absorb¬ 
ing passion. 

“ I want a house, Henry,” she said 
one night to her husband’s cousin. 

They were walking, as they often did, 
up and down, on the soft earth, in the 


7o 


Harper's Novelettes 


wild wonder of the sunset. It turned 
their very faces into gold, tinged their 
sun-faded hair with glory, and lighted 
their eyes with a sort of over-beauty. 
Their clothes no longer appeared worn 
and work-stained, but garments splendid. 
When they spoke simple words, it was 
as those who can afford to use plain lan¬ 
guage, because of some argent richness of 
thought lying behind the words. About 
them was vastness; and their isolation 
became at such moments not pitiable, but 
proud. They seemed allied to historic 
desert-dwellers, and they felt sure of the 
possession of the virtues which have made 
such dignified among men—the virtues 
of hospitality, of courage, of tribal faith. 
This night the glow was paler than it 
sometimes was, and they spoke softly, 
and of home things, Claudia following 
with idle gaze a humming - bird that 
nested in the branching cactus, unafraid 
of harm. 

“You should have had a house long 
ago,” said Crowe, “only I had a fear 
that you might think we were trying to 
tie you down here. Neither James nor 
I wish to do that, of course.” 

“Destiny has made this my home,” 
she said, gravely. “It is here that I 
live.” There was no sadness in the tone. 


A Madonna of the Desert 71 


The soft vibrations of the voice seemed 
tinged with a gentle pride. 

“ I would have built a house for my¬ 
self,” continued her companion, “ only 
I’ve always liked that little bunch of 
tents. It reminds me of a Bible picture 
I used to look at when I was a little 
fellow. Probably the picture was all 
wrong, and that tents of that particular 
sort had nothing to do with the case; 
but, anyway, it’s in my mind and won’t 
get out. The mules have been a real 
cross to me. I always wanted camels and 
some date-palms.” 

Claudia gave a gurgling, birdlike laugh. 

“I know,” she said; “but, dear me! 
you never can have camels. And you 
can’t make a tent-woman out of me. I’m 
not that kind, you see.” 

“ No,” admitted Crowe, looking at her, 
“you aren’t.” 

She had never lost her look of fragility, 
of gentleness. She was essentially do¬ 
mestic, Her smile was made to welcome 
one at the threshold. Her voice was 
for sheltered rooms. It suited itself to 
the hearth, the cradle, and the family 
table. The wild might be all about her, 
but she remained a tame thing, a creature 
of roof and fire, of songs and dreams, 
of the quiet arts, of housed loves. 


72 


Harper’s Novelettes 


So the men were set to work to put 
her up an adobe. It was in two parts, 
with a patio between, and in the patio 
she swung hammocks and set certain 
potted vines—things not of that environ¬ 
ment. One room was for sleeping. It 
was bare and clean and comfortable, with 
the air blowing in from every side, if 
the occupants so willed. 

The other room was for living—for it 
was still Crowe’s idea to have his cousins 
eat at the general table, that being 
economy both of food and service. This 
second room Claudia decorated with 
the conventionalized leaf of the yucca 
splashed in dull red upon the walls. She 
had, among the things she had brought 
from home with her, a roll of dark-red 
Indian cotton flecked with peacock’s 
feathers, and of this she made draperies 
and a couch-cover. James’s invalid-chair 
and her own rocker, brought over from 
Santa Cerro, stood beside the reading- 
table, and there were a few books and 
twenty photographs of Jamie. The floor 
of pounded earth was made gay with 
Indian rugs, and baskets, both for use 
and ornament, played a conspicuous part 
in the furnishing. A well-tended olla 
stood in the shadiest corner, and a flower¬ 
ing Mexican shawl flaunted itself — a 


A Madonna of the Desert 73 

piece of flamboyant tapestry—from the 
wall. It was rather a gay little apart¬ 
ment, and when its mistress was in it 
her qualities of femininity seemed to be¬ 
come accentuated. 

“ I would know it wa 3 your room, 
Claudia,” said Henry Crowe, “ if I 
stumbled in it without a notion that you 
were this side of the Rockies.” 

It seemed to speak of home and old 
association to Judic, too, and he was in 
it a good deal more than might have 
been expected. He and Crowe got in 
the way of playing chess together, and 
Claudia sewed or watched them. 

But this room, sociable as it was, could 
not be said to be her favorite. She liked 
better the night-room—the room where 
she slept. For sleep had come to be the 
doorway to an enchanted castle of 
Heart’s Desire. There baby kisses were 
ready at hand to warm a mother’s starved 
lips; baby hands tugged at one’s skirts; 
a baby voice shattered the great bubble 
of silence. Sometimes, even, warm, 
down-soft baby fingers cuddled in one’s 
palm. And when dawn came, overbright, 
awaking one to the bald facts of life, 
there was—well, anything but that which 
came in dreams. 

By common consent the group of 
6 


74 


Harpers Novelettes 


pinon-trees near Mrs. Judic’s adobe was 
considered as her private garden, though 
no wall surrounded it save the blue 
horizon, and no flowers grew there ex¬ 
cept those of the fancy. But the scrub- 
pines made a sort of screen, so low did 
their branches grow upon the trunks; and 
the point of honor, which was to avoid 
scrutinizing Mrs. Judic when she retired 
to this spot, gave it a privacy which walls 
might not have secured. It had from 
the first been Claudia’s custom to spend 
much time there, but when for several 
days she came to haunt the spot, the 
men grew curious. And at last Sandy 
Rich played the Peeping Tom. Mrs. 
Judic had gone for a canter, and when 
her white mare and blue frock were 
splotches of color on the mesa, Sandy, 
ventured into the “garden.” What he 
saw made him worried for a moment 
about Mrs. Judic’s sanity. For there 
were little shelves fitted in between the 
trees, with low benches before them, 
and on the shelves were bits of broken 
china, glittering pieces of quartz, mica 
chips, a foolish array of shards and scraps 
such as a child might gather. Sandy, 
heavy-jawed and wide-eyed, stood staring. 
He thought hard and long, and by de¬ 
grees an idea dawned. 


A Madonna of the Desert 75 

“It’s the kid!” he decided. “She’s 
plannin’ to git the kid out.” 

He told first one and then another of 
the men, till all the camp knew. It 
needed this explanation, perhaps, to ac¬ 
count for the change that was coming 
over her. Something half coquettish or 
expectant, something sweetly and timor¬ 
ously gay, showed itself in her manner 
and her looks. She was laying aside the 
old frocks which she had worn till they 
were almost in rags, and was appearing 
in new clothes, made by her own hands, 
and girded with scarlet or blue. She 
donned little cloth caps of the same col¬ 
ors, and she had the appearance when she 
came from her tent of having a new 
toilet. The sum represented in these 
purchases was a minute one, but fore¬ 
thought had been given, that was evident. 
James Judic happened to mention, casual¬ 
ly, that his wife was sending back a 
red tam-o’-shanter because she didn’t like 
the shade. 

It may have been about this time that 
he began to notice that he had lost his 
abject servitor. He no longer required 
close service, it is true, but his sick van¬ 
ity had got into the way of expecting it. 
His wife, however, appeared to have too 
many matters in hand to spend her time 


76 


Harper's Novelettes 


in watching or anticipating his moods. 
She was continually occupied with some¬ 
thing, as he noticed with an irritation 
of which he felt ashamed and for which 
he could not account. She was riding, 
or housekeeping, or sewing, or touching 
with fingers reminiscent of old days the 
zither which Henry Crowe had bought 
for her on her last birthday. The music, 
soft as an axfiian Jiarp, crept into the air, 
spending itself like a slow wave. Under 
her fingers it was as soft and yearning 
as a woman’s voice; and, indeed, the 
melodies took to themselves—or so it 
seemed to him who had given her the 
instrument—the accents of supplication. 
They appeared to woo and call and coax. 
Sandy Rich, striding up and down in 
the night, unseen and vaguely dreaming 
of things he could not voice, tormented, 
too, with a pain he did not understand, 
made out the meaning of all this. 

“ She’s callin’ the kid,” he said, in 
his beard. “ An’, by gosh! if I was dead 
I believe I’d hear her—callin’ like that!” 

Presently it was known that Sandy’s 
surmises had been correct, and that “ the 
kid ” was coming out in the care of a 
woman who lived at Towner, the next 
village to Craven, and that she was 
going on to Pasadena, and was to drop 


A Madonna of the Desert 77 

little Jamie Judic off at San Miguel, 
where the train was to be slacked for 
the purpose. The day was set. He was 
coming; and it was considered good form 
for every one to make some reference to 
it when Mrs. Judic was around. 

u I tell ye what/’ said Sandy, “ you’ll 
have to keep him dost to the house. Mis’ 
Judic. You mustn’t let him git around 
the blastin’.” 

“ There’s that colt of Haney’s,” said 
Crowe, speaking of the flecked colt of 
the white mare. u By the time it’s old 
enough to saddle, Jamie ’ll be the right 
size to mount him.” 

“ I cal’late we’ll have to shet off Sandy’s 
vile swear in’ tongue,” declared Judson 
Shafer, the overseer of the mill. “ He 
ain’t fit for no kid to he around.” 

Crowe decided to build himself a home; 
and after that had been built in the 
odd hours of the men, Shafer, the over¬ 
seer, went in with two other men to 
put up a third residence. Camp Crowe 
began to lose its gipsy look—its appear¬ 
ance of being an overnight caravan. 

Moreover, Claudia contrived a sun¬ 
dial, and she got Sandy Rich to build 
a spring-house. It was of rough rock, 
with seats by the side, and Sandy fretted 
out, crudely, in the stone, this doggerel: 


78 


Harper's Novelettes 


Comfort give to great and least, 
Wandering man and weary beast. 

She sent for some pepper-tree saplings 
and willow cuttings, and set them out 
near the spring, where they took kindly 
to their environment. 

But Claudia Judic, working, laughing, 
cajoling, was, after all, merely cheating 
time. Her hands were busy, but her 
eyes were, so to speak, on the clock. She 
was set to one tune, wound up for a 
certain hour, focussed to a coming event! 

“I think,” she said, gravely, to the 
men at supper one night, “ that though 
it may seem foolish in me, I’d better 
start for the train the night before Jamie 
is expected. You see, starting at dawn 
is all very well ordinarily, and I know 
you’ve made it with the mules over and 
over again. Yet, if one of them should 
happen to fall lame or anything break 
about the wagon—” She broke off in 
horror at the thought. 

“But where could you sleep?” asked 
Crowe, turning a deep gaze upon her. 
“You can’t lie out in the desert, you 
know.” 

Claudia had a vision of the dark won¬ 
der of the pulsing sky, and the star of 
the Nativity above the place where the 
Babe lay. 


A Madonna of the Desert 79 


“ Oh, I should not at all mind lying 
out in the sand,” she said. “ And in 
the morning we could build a fire and 
make our coffee, and have Mr. Hull over 
to eat with us. I have always liked Mr. 
Hull so much!” She referred to the 
station agent who had signalled her 
good luck the day of her arrival. 

So it was agreed. Sandy was to drive, 
and Judic and his wife were to go in 
the wagon, which was to be taken on to 
Santa Cerro for supplies, and then, re¬ 
turning to San Miguel, pick them up. 

But from excitement or defect of will, 
James Judic fell ill, suddenly and acute¬ 
ly, and his wife could not leave him. She 
came to breakfast and told the men. 

“ I can’t go,” she said, in a voice they 
had never heard her use before. “Mr. 
Judic is very ill indeed. He’ll be well 
by to-morrow or the next day if I nurse 
him properly, but I couldn’t leave him. 
It’s out of the question. You’ll have to 
—to go alone, Mr. Rich.” 

A stormy silence spread around the 
table. Tornado seemed imminent, and 
Claudia quivered to it. She held the 
men steady with her brave, tortured eyes. 

“ Mr. Judic is terribly distressed about 
—about disappointing me,” she said. 
“But he knows that Mr. Rich will take 


8o 


Harper's Novelettes 


good care of—of—” She could not utter 
another syllable. For the first time in 
their three years' experience with her 
she broke down. But she had a proud 
frankness about it. She put her hand 
first to her trembling lips and then to 
her eyes, and arose with dignity and made 
her way to the door. 

Sandy Rich was off early. He started, 
indeed, a day in advance of the appointed 
time, but there was, of course, the mar¬ 
keting to do at Santa Cerro. 

“ Thunder and mud !” sighed Sandy, 
“but I’ll bet them mules do go lame! 
I’ll bet you two to one the darned wagon 
breaks! I’d ruther be chased by Injuns 
than go on this yere errand!” 

“ See you do it well,” growled Judson 
Shafer. “ If you come back here with¬ 
out that kid, you’ll be lynched.” 

It was meant for a jest, but it sounded 
curiously unlike one. Sandy knew the 
eyes that watched from the adobe by the 
pinons, and as he flicked his sand- 
colored mules down the mesa, they seemed 
to be burning holes in his back—those 
eyes with their soft fires. He resisted 
the impulse to turn as long as he could. 
It seemed almost too familiar, too con¬ 
fidential, for him to respond to this 


A Madonna of the Desert 81 


mystic and imperious message. But the 
force was too compelling. He turned 
and waved his hand. Something scarlet 
flashed back and forth in answer. It was 
the red cap—of the right shade—which 
Claudia Judic had got to please the 
critical, heaven-blue eyes of her son! 

Work went badly at the blastings and 
worse at the mill. An air of uncertainty 
pervaded everything. Mrs. Judic was not 
at dinner nor at supper. The sound of 
her zither was not heard. An appalling 
and, it seemed, a presageful silence hung 
over her house. The night settled down, 
with purple sky and stars of burning 
beauty; the dawn was pellucid, with a 
whispering ground-wind. But still, at 
breakfast, she was not visible. The camp 
had fed and battened on her good cheer, 
but she hid herself in the hour of her 
fears. The gay mask was down, and she 
spared them the sight of the bared, truth¬ 
ful face. 

The long day waned—the long, bland, 
golden, unemphasized day. It drew to its 
close, as all days have to, whether of 
agony or ecstasy. And on the mesa, a 
little bunch against the sky, appeared 
the familiar wagon. 

“ It's Sandy,” said the men, drawing 
long breaths and lighting their pipes—for 


82 


Harpers Novelettes 

supper was just over. “It’s that fool 
Sandy.” And they smoked silently, wait¬ 
ing in vicarious agony. 

Had the train been smashed? Had 
the woman kidnapped the child? Had 
the child died on the way? These ques¬ 
tions, crudely put and jokingly ex¬ 
changed, represented the sympathy felt 
for that invisible woman in the adobe. 
They did not know that at their utmost 
they could encompass only a portion of 
her fears. 

It came on along the mesa—the wagon 
came on. It was at first an exasperating- 
ly small thing, but it grew. It attained 
its normal size. It drove into the camp 
yard. A glorious gold from the utter¬ 
most west enveloped the earth, and all 
things were visible by it, though beauti¬ 
fied. They all saw Sandy there in the 
wagon, and saw him sitting — alone. 
The men were as statues—immovable as 
those hideous dancers back on the old 
trail—as Claudia Judic came out of the 
adobe and drifted like an ungraved ghost 
down the warm sands. She was dressed 
in white—none of them had ever seen her 
so dressed before—and she wore a little 
trailing vine in her hair. 

The eyes they had known so patient 
had a different look in them now. They 


A Madonna of the Desert 83 


held a consuming expectancy, a terrible 
impatience, a sort of divine torment. 
But there was only Sandy on the seat, 
busying himself with something back in 
the wagon, and for very mercy the men 
looked away. 

What did she mean by coming on like 
that when she saw there was only Sandy ? 
They were indignant. They wanted to 
shout to her to go back. Shafer tried to 
wave to her, but his arms fell powerless. 
She came on so swiftly, too! A miserable 
panic seized upon the men. They wanted 
to run. 

Then, as they looked, as they flinched, 
as they inwardly cursed, up above the 
seat back rose a tousled head of gold, a 
pair of wondering eyes filled with baby- 
wisdom, a dew-damp face flushed from 
sleep, smiling yet tremulous! 

Sandy leaned back and lent a hand. 

“ Up with you, old man F he cried. 
u Here ye are, honey-heart, and here’s 
yer ma!” 

They saw her come on and reach up 
her slender arms. They saw the boy look 
at her with adorable timidity; saw her 
beaming beauty banish his fears, saw her 
gather him close and walk away with his 
head pillowed in her neck. 

Sandy got down from the wagon seat 


8 4 


Harpers Novelettes 


and stood on the shining earth in the 
glorified light. He began to unharness 
the mules, and three men came to assist 
him. Silence hung heavy sweet. But 
Sandy valorously broke it. 

“ I calkilate I don’t git lynched,” he 
said. 


The Prophetess of the Land of 
No-Smoke 

BY MARIE MANNING 

O LD Chugg had brought the stage 
into town one afternoon on a 
rocking gallop that to the initi¬ 
ated signified some information of im¬ 
portance, and, without leaving the box, 
had given some advance news in panto¬ 
mime. He had a passenger inside—an 
old man with a beard like a prophet, who 
later went about the vicious little town 
affixing signs to such resorts as apparent¬ 
ly stood most grievously in need of refor¬ 
mation. The notices merely stated that 
a prayer-meeting would be held on No- 
Smoke prairie on the following Thursday, 
and that all would be welcome. But as 
Chugg’s pantomime had consisted of 
elaborate manipulation of a phantom 
skirt, with sundry coquettish rollings of 
the eye and some clerical gesticulation, 
it had not taken the cognoscenti long to 


86 


Harper's Novelettes 


discover that they might shortly expect a 
visit from the woman preacher. 

Town had long heard of her—the fame 
of her preaching was broadcast. “ When 
she left a settlement,” Chugg had been 
kind enough to add, “you wondered if 
she had done it alone, or if she had had 
any seventeen-year locusts in to help her.” 
So town had decided to respond to the 
invitation as a man—not that it felt it¬ 
self as seriously in need of reformation 
as of amusement. 

The fire and brimstone that had been 
hurled at it by the migratory preachers 
that came to No-Smoke at long intervals 
seldom failed to enliven the life of the 
range; and while no outward disrespect 
to the men of the jeremiads would have 
been permitted, their diatribes seldom 
failed to add to the common fund of 
innocent amusement. The men were will¬ 
ing to pay well for their entertainment, 
too, when the hat was passed, and, on 
the whole, they considered that matters 
between themselves and the casual shep¬ 
herds that came to No-Smoke stood 
about even. And they would bid an out¬ 
wardly chastened adieu to the parson and 
await the next camp happening—which 
might be vaudeville combined with the 
sale of patent medicine, some desperate 


The Prophetess 


»7 


act demanding the swift, unrelenting 
justice of the plains; or another preacher 
with his tales of fire and brimstone. On 
the whole, the woman preacher promised 
more in the way of entertainment than 
her brothers in judgment. And one who 
knew them well would have scented mis¬ 
chief in the men’s demureness as they 
rode forth from town as sedate as a com¬ 
pany of pilgrims nearing a shrine. 

Spring had come slowly this year in 
the Land of No-Smoke. Its name, which 
in the original tongue stood for its great 
loneliness—the place where no camp-fire 
nor the curling smoke of tepee intruded 
upon the silent councils of the hills,—had 
of late years lost its significance. The 
Indians had left the land to the sun and 
the silence and the evil spirits that, ac¬ 
cording to their traditions, dwelt there. 
But the big cattle outfits had no tradi¬ 
tions, and when they saw that the land 
was good for grazing they brought many 
herds, and the silent spaces of No-Smoke 
fell into the ways that were strange to it. 
Town sprang into being overnight. The 
cracked tinkle of the dance-hall piano, 
the clinking of glasses and spurs, laughter 
loud if not always mirthful, pistol-shots, 
—for life there was essentially a thing 
to be played with,—all contributed their 


88 


Harpers Novelettes 


sprightly chronicle, till at last the Land 
of No-Smoke became a byword for all 
that was unseemly. And the parsons on 
their way to towns of better repute 
hurled damnation at it and left it to 
its evil ways. 

“ I take it,” said Tom Jarvis, who was 
in the lead of the string of horsemen 
winding their way over the old Indian 
trail in the direction of the prayer¬ 
meeting, “ that we’re nearing this yere 
spiritual round-up. The lady parson is 
even now heating her branding-irons in 
yonder tent. The herd ”—he waved a com¬ 
prehensive hand toward his companions— 
“ will be druv to the back of the wagon, 
where the lady will brand it accordin’ to 
taste. i Rock of Ages ’ and the passin’ 
of the hat—especially the passin’ of the 
hat—will conclood the services.” 

Jarvis was undeniably good to look at; 
even men would admit it. His black, 
curly head easily topped the crowd that 
would collect at any of their foregather¬ 
ing-places in the hope of one of his in¬ 
imitable stories. Jarvis was what was 
known about camp as “ a tall liar,” but 
his work was invariably artistic. His 
delicately aquiline profile hinted at Latin 
descent, and the sombrero tilted rakishly 
but the more closely suggested the resem- 


8 9 


The Prophetess 

blance to one of Velasquez’s gentlemen. 
Yet Jarvis spoke the “English” of the 
range with perfect content, applied his 
knife to his food with more than a 
dilettante’s skill, and abhorred what he 
would have called “ dude manners.” 
There was a cruel straightness to the lips 
when he laughed, and he laughed more 
with women than with men. It was said 
about town that he had a wife in Texas 
whom he had quarrelled with, but of this 
Jarvis had never spoken. He was still 
in the lead of the string of horsemen 
heading toward the prayer-meeting when 
Saunders spurred his pinto abreast of 
Jarvis’s sorrel. 

“ The whole country seems to be takin’ 
on about us, and now here’s this preachin’ 
woman.” He spoke pettishly, as though 
the criticism of the community of which 
he was an unimportant integer were a 
personal affront. 

Jarvis half turned in his saddle and re¬ 
garded with frank amusement the chinless 
face with its round eyes and puffy cheeks. 

“Yes,” he said, with the keen enjoy¬ 
ment of a big boy making merry with a 
little one: “ The Platte Valley Lyre in 
that last editorial allowed that the bark 
was on our manners a heap; said we had 
taken the cure for the water habit, till 
7 


90 


Harper's Novelettes 


the sight of a puddle set us barkin’ like a 
caucus of black-and-tans.” 

“ You don’t say so!” said Saunders, per¬ 
ceptibly moved by this statement. “I’d 
just hate my folks to hear that.” 

The camp of the woman preacher was 
before them. The eternal flatness of the 
prairie was broken by the outline of a 
little white tent and a big uncovered 
wagon. A pair of lean horses close by 
were cropping the scant pasturage of 
early spring. These human appurte¬ 
nances seemed small and as feebly inade¬ 
quate to cope with the giant forces about 
them as a child’s toys would have been. 
The old man who had affixed the notices 
of the prayer-meeting sat on one of the 
wagon shafts, sulkily whittling. His at¬ 
titude toward the impending service 
seemed analogous to that of the com¬ 
pulsory host whose womenfolk have 
bullied him into giving a party. He con¬ 
tented himself with a churlish nod to the 
men and whittled as if whittling were 
the business of the day. 

But with the appearance of Miriam the 
sanctimonious demureness of the congre¬ 
gation, which had not been put out of 
countenance in the least by the old man’s 
lack of cordiality, now gave way to self- 
conscious shyness. She was so unlike the 


The Prophetess 9 1 

drawings they had made of her on the 
walls of Magee’s that the sudden revela¬ 
tion of their shortcomings as draughts¬ 
men had the effect of turning the tables, 
so to speak, and scoring a joke against 
themselves. She had no real claims to 
actual beauty—which made the almost 
thrilling effect of her presence the more 
amazing. She looked her history. All 
the selflessness, the long battling against 
sordid conditions, all the medieval mys¬ 
ticism, were written in that face, in the 
gray eyes that might have seen visions, 
in the mouth that would be tender even 
in old age. She had the look of a 
young sibyl whose heart is wrung that 
she must speak the words of sorrowful 
human destinies. 

The men made way for her reverently. 
Their awkward deference had in it a 
shade more of awe, perhaps, than even 
the most beautiful woman might have 
taken unquestioningly as the rightful 
tribute of a country where the woman- 
famine made itself insistent at every turn. 
Her glance swept the throng of faces 
crowded close about the wagon, then came 
back to Tom Jarvis. Perhaps it was his 
general bearing, so startlingly at variance 
with the rest of the group, that at first 
challenged her attention. His easy atti- 


92 


Harper's Novelettes 


tude had in it something of flattery, 
something of curiosity, something of per¬ 
sonal demand. The strained attention 
that characterized the rest of them was 
in the case of Jarvis conspicuously lack¬ 
ing. He was frankly interested in her, 
but not as a possible proselyte to any 
scheme of salvation that she might have 
up her sleeve, so to speak. Again she 
returned his glance, and the words al¬ 
ready pressing at her lips took flight. 
Something there was that seemed to speed 
from those half-smiling eyes beneath the 
tilted sombrero and bring with it con¬ 
fusion. For the first time since she had 
received “ the call ” to speak to these peo¬ 
ple of the wilderness she was sensible of 
self, of an ignoble desire to acquit her¬ 
self with distinction;—the serenity of the 
prophetess had given place to the self- 
consciousness of the woman. 

“God! O God!” she called, and her 
voice was muffled as one who calls feebly 
in the anguish of a dream. But the sound 
broke the spell; the congregation was not 
called to wait longer for her preaching. 
Miriam spoke to them from the big open 
wagon in which she had journeyed. On 
the seat was the old man, her father, 
his hand in his prophet's beard, looking 
up at her—though he lost the magic of 


The Prophetess 


93 


her words in his wonder at her gift of 
speech. Her gaze was beyond them all— 
straight into the blue. The wide shining 
eyes gave glowing testimony of her abun¬ 
dant inspiration. After that first break¬ 
ing of the spell the outflow of her sin¬ 
cerity bore her along with the force of 
a torrent. The grim lines relaxed in the 
men’s faces; they looked up at her, a 
group of great, overgrown boys with 
some latent flash of the ingenuousness 
of childhood lighting up their russet, 
tanned faces. 

“ Our Heavenly Father,” she prayed, 
“give me the power to speak Thy word 
as Thou wouldst have it spoken, lovingly 
and with mercy. Let these men feel 
through me, unworthy medium, that Thou 
art with them in this wilderness,—in this 
land of such great loneliness that savage 
peoples long ago called it by a name that 
means there is no home in all the land. 
And calling it thus, they left it to the 
suns and the snows and the silence that 
were here always. And if these men, 
in their desolation, sometimes try to for¬ 
get that there are no good women and 
little children who are glad of their com¬ 
ing—if they try to forget these things— 
do not let them think that Thou judgest 
them without understanding. False 


94 


Harper’s Novelettes 


prophets have told them that Thy wrath 
burns as the summer sun on the desert 
sand, but tell them through me that it 
is not so. For Thy mercy, boundless as 
this wilderness, is with them always.” 

She stretched out her hands to them 
in quivering entreaty; the tears streamed 
down her face. The men were moved by 
them more than by the words she had 
spoken;—a woman had wept over them, 
a good woman. An inarticulate murmur 
ran through the group. They edged up 
closer to the wagon and listened like 
hounds with every sense abeyant. 

Subconsciously she was aware of an 
influence drawing her gaze from the 
mountains, and the necessity for resisting 
it. Then in an unguarded moment her 
eyes wandered from the snows of the 
towering peaks to the group of faces be¬ 
fore her, and her glance encountered the 
smiling eyes of Tom Jarvis. Tolerance, 
indulgence even, there were in that nar¬ 
row look that told unmistakably he was 
not taking her seriously. Realizing this, 
there came an end to her inspiration. 
She was no longer the shepherdess of No- 
Smoke; she was only a woman who had 
done her best. She asked a blessing on 
their meeting and took refuge in the 
little white tent. 


The Prophetess 


95 


The men shook themselves like dogs 
that had been through deep waters—all 
but Tom Jarvis, whose narrow eyes con¬ 
tracted, then he yawned. Some of the 
men began to talk to the old man on 
the wagon shaft. Miriam remained with¬ 
in the tent. 

“ Say!” said Softy Saunders, his fin¬ 
gers twirling a dirty dollar bill, “that 
was a heap fashionable sermon, but why 
don’t they pass the hat ?” 

Jarvis smiled his narrow smile. “ She’s 
inside the tent looking up a deep one—the 
stovepipe hat that the old man wore when 
he run a faro-bank over in Tucson.” 

The men changed countenance; the 
fleeting boyish expression with which 
they had listened to her preaching gave 
place to their every-day reckless look. 
The haggard lines came back, and there 
was some unseemly laughter. 

“Did you see this man deal faro over 
in Tucson?” 

“ I never see his own particular bunch 
of features hovering over a faro-table,” 
Jarvis admitted, “but I ain’t been out in 
this country for ten years without pickin’ 
up the art of readin’ brands some. See 
an old graybeard trailin’ round the coun¬ 
try with a likely-lookin’ young gal, and 
I’ll show you a coin round-up all right. 


g6 Harper's Novelettes 

Sometimes it's singin’ an’ voyleen, some¬ 
times it's faro, sometimes it’s preachin’, 
but you pay for it, no matter what’s 
its alias.” 

“ But if you ain’t seen this identical 
old man and this identical gal dealin’ 
faro, you got no call to run felonous 
brands on to ’em and turn ’em loose for 
contumely,”—Softy Saunders grew two 
inches ,—“ and by your leave I think you 
are a liar.” 

A dozen hands dragged them apart. 
The old man on the wagon shaft, talking 
ramblingly to whomever would listen, had 
heard no word of the dispute, but now 
burst into feeble cackles of senile laugh¬ 
ter. “ Let ’em scrap; let ’em scrap—ha, 
ha!—used to be a great scrapper myself; 
stopped it now, though. She ”—he jerked 
his thumb toward the white tent—“ she 
don’t like it!” He continued to laugh 
feebly, looking at them from one to the 
other, his eyes deep in the mists of 
seventy odd years. “ Used to do right 
smart o’ odd jobs back home,” and again 
the ghostly laughter. “ Whitewashed Mis’ 
Todd’s fence and mended her chicken- 
coop all in one day—ha, ha! I tell you 
there was a livin’ in it, but she”—and 
again the accusing thumb pointed toward 
the tent—“heard there warn’t no min- 


97 


The Prophetess 

isters out here, and she would sell out an 
come. Said what was good enough for 
Matthew was good enough for us. House 
belonged to her; her mother left it that 
way; an’ here we be ’most ready for 
the poorhouse.” 

Jarvis looked about with a triumphant 
smile. “ Surely, uncle, you’ll let me pass 
the hat among the boys ?” 

In a twinkling the mist rolled away 
from the dull eyes. 

“ If she don’t catch us—you couldn’t 
pass no hat—but you might give me any 
little thing.” He looked apprehensively 
toward the tent. Jarvis sent his eyes up 
and drew his nose down, and grinned 
around the circle like a cow-punching 
Mephistopheles. Saunders had already 
dropped his dirty dollar in the clutching 
tentacles of the old man. He answered 
Jarvis’s grimace with a wink. Several 
of the men followed and deposited coins 
or bills, according to their capacity for 
receiving and retaining sentimental im¬ 
pressions under adverse circumstances. 
The old man cackled feebly as he 
opened and shut his fist. His eyes had 
taken on new lustre; they glowed pale¬ 
ly, like a candle burning behind a cob- 
webbed pane. 

u Father! father!” The cry, full of dis- 


98 Harper's Novelettes 

tress, rang from the tent, and Miriam 
ran to the old man and opened his hand 
quickly, as if she were taking some hurt¬ 
ful spoil from a child. She turned to the 
men with eyes full of disappointment. 
“ Didn’t I say one word to your hearts ?” 
She pointed to the hills against the sky¬ 
line, blue on blue, till the long chain 
melted into the snow crests. “And I 
came all that way to speak to you, and 
this is your answer!” She crowded the 
money into Jarvis’s hand so carelessly 
that some of the smaller coins rolled to 
the ground. “Father is old; he does 
not understand.” With infinite tender¬ 
ness she led him toward the tent; he 
was whimpering like a child. “ Yes, yes,” 
she soothed him, “ I’ll get your supper 
now, and you’re to have the fresh eggs 
we got yesterday,—and I’ll make the cof¬ 
fee strong and sweet.” 

“It looks mighty like the quenchers 
were on you, Jarvis,” said one of the 
men, lounging up to the doubting Thomas 
as he tightened his cinch. Town was 
far away; the sun, a flaming ball, was 
dropping behind the western range like 
a round lantern caught afire. 

Jarvis continued busy with his cinch, 
and when he looked up he seemed less 
sure of himself, less debonair. 


The Prophetess 


99 


“ You’re right. The quenchers are on 
me if any one will drink with such a 
hound 1 ” He flung a leg across the sorrel, 
and soon was one with the shadows of 
the foot-hills. At the fork of the road 
they turned to look back. Miriam had 
come from the white tent and begun to 
gather dry sage-brush for the evening fire. 
They watched her crouching, moving fig¬ 
ure, now silhouetted against the red, now 
lost in the shadows, as she went and 
came among the dry stalks of last year’s 
rank abundance. The line of the head, 
the meek profile, the round throat melt¬ 
ing into the simply gathered bodice, were 
all so many arguments in her favor. The 
eloquence of Demosthenes would not have 
prevailed against the solitary figure go¬ 
ing about her homely task on the lone¬ 
ly prairie. 

They went back to town, and not a 
man among them could have told what 
it was that had befallen him and robbed 
his pipe of its savor or Mr. Magee’s 
saloon of its accustomed sorcery. They 
talked it over far into the night, and 
decided — with perhaps not more than 
ninety-five per cent, of self-deception— 
that what really ailed them was the de¬ 
sire of a firm purpose of amendment. 
They cast about for a convincingly 

tore. 


ioo Harper's Novelettes 

oblique argument to detain the woman 
preacher among them, and a coveted sal¬ 
vation seemed to meet the greatest num¬ 
ber of artistic requirements. While it 
was yet early morning a committee was 
in its saddles, flogging in the direction 
of No-Smoke to present a petition for a 
daily prayer-meeting for one week. They 
did not make a second mistake of offer¬ 
ing pecuniary inducement,—but might 
they not bring a little game to the 
camp, as the country was fairly run¬ 
ning over with things that needed kill¬ 
ing? This to the old man, who at the 
suggestion seemed to strike off a spark 
or two of cordiality from his generally 
flinty demeanor. 

But the prophetess would not commit 
herself. She had a journey to make to 
the north, and—her manner was gently 
deprecatory—she was not sure that the 
Lord had need of her work in the Land 
of No-Smoke. At which ensued such 
sanctimonious protestations, such cres¬ 
cendos and decrescendos of sighing, 
such rolling up of eyes and dropping 
of mouth corners, that had these bronzed 
men been in anything but a frame 
of mind utterly unnatural they would 
have been the first to laugh at them¬ 
selves. The prophetess told them that 


The Prophetess 


IOI 


she would pray for light, and if it 
should he made manifest that it was the 
will of the Master, she would stay and 
pray with them daily for a week. They 
thanked her and returned to town. And 
the miracle of it was that no one laughed, 
not even when they were out of ear¬ 
shot from her, nor yet when they had 
dismounted at Magee’s — dismounted 
there merely for the sake of habit. 
Trade was falling off, and the saloon¬ 
keeper, after a morning of unprecedented 
leisure, poured himself a solitary draught 
of consolation, and wondered what the 
town was coming to. 

Jarvis joined them. He had not been 
one of the committee to go to No-Smoke 
prairie to plead with the prophetess for 
the prayer-meetings. Unlike the rest of 
them, he had not mislaid his sense 
of humor. 

“Pass the sugar for the green-goose¬ 
berry tarts, Willy,” the facetious Jarvis 
called to an imaginary attendant, waving 
his hand toward the soured-looking con¬ 
verts, who seemed devoid of inspiration 
or occupation till such time as they 
should return to the camp of the prophet¬ 
ess to hear of her decision. “ Of course 
the lady’s goin’ to pull her righteous 
freight. A blind mule could see that 


102 


Harpers Novelettes 

you are converted straight through to the 
other side. ‘ Othello’s occupation’s gone,’ 
as the gent remarked in the Cheyenne 
opera-house after he’d done strangling his 
wife.” And the newly regenerate were 
forced to admit that the chances of 
further spiritual aid seemed against them. 

“ I move,” continued Jarvis, tilting his 
sombrero till the white line above the 
tan on his forehead showed, “ that this 
yere outfit regards me as its forlorn hope. 
I ain’t as yet found grace, and if this 
here lady soul-sharp can be induced to 
stop over, it will be because she’s con¬ 
vinced that I shorely am in need of it. 
I therefore move that I act as a committee 
of one lost sheep, flocks out to her camp, 
alone, and states the case. The chances 
are that she’ll rather enjoy plucking me 
as a brand from the burning.” They 
had to admit the plausibility of this argu¬ 
ment. Jarvis it was who had refused 
to take her seriously. Jarvis presenting 
himself as a proselyte would not be with¬ 
out weight on his side of the argument. 
They heartily urged on him the role of 
envoy extraordinary and minister pleni¬ 
potentiary to the prophetess; but when 
he left town, some half-hour later, on his 
self-imposed errand of diplomacy, they 
were conscious of a just indignation in 



The Prophetess 103 

seeing that he wore a pair of new over¬ 
alls, and that the red silk handker¬ 
chief that sagged gracefully from his 
bronzed throat was the one reserved for 
state occasions. ' 

The great plain of No-Smoke seemed 
to yearn in its utter loneliness. On three 
sides the hills girt it about, and from it 
the pale spring sunshine, like some golden 
vintage pouring from a broken cup, 
streamed down to the great stark desert 
beyond, that still slept the dreamless 
sleep of frost-bound desolation. In the 
uplands the wine of spring had begun 
to flush into life all winter - numbed 
things. The wind had the note of the 
mating bird as it sang in the bare branches 
of the cottonwoods, already feathery of 
outline; the tiny cactus leaves were 
shooting up from last year’s shrivelled 
stumps, their thorns yet as harmless as 
the claws of a week - old kitten; the 
creek, full, deep-voiced, sang lustily of 
abundance. It gave plenty or it gave 
famine, as it brawled to the struggling 
ranch-lands below. In the spring there 
was human destiny in its singing. The 
first faint earthy smell mingled with the 
spice of the pine3, and Jarvis breathed 
deeply of its fragrance. 

Though the few pitiful household ef- 


104 Harper’s Novelettes 

fects of the old man and his daughter 
were already packed and corded for the 
onward move—the call to remain not 
having been made clear to Miriam—she 
saw in the return of this solitary seoffer 
a manifestation that left no room to 
doubt the trend of duty. He had pre¬ 
sented himself shorn of all prankishness. 
There was no mockery in the eyes that 
met hers, no trace of any cynicism in the 
voice that asked for help. 

“ Could I give it you, my brother,” 
and again the quivering appeal of those 
big, kindly hands, that looked capable 
of so full a measure of tenderness, 
“could I give you the grace to see His 
mercy,—then indeed I would stay. But 
if this need of yours be to make a mock 
of me, to give my brothers cause for jest 
and laughter, then it were better that 
I go to those who have real need of my 
poor ministering.” There was no anger 
in her voice, nor any hint of wounded 
pride at his failure to take her preaching 
seriously; but only a gentle setting forth 
of things expedient. 

Jarvis bent his head. “It’s true, lady, 
I grinned last night like a wolf; but 
don’t you know that a man ’ll grin when 
the truth bites at his heart—grin to hide 
the hurt, that he may not cry like a baby. 


The Prophetess 


io 5 

Again his eyes sought hers and held 
them captive; she wrestled blindly with 
the strange force in her heart, with the 
alien presence that had crept in like a 
thief in the night and laid rough hands 
on treasure that had seemed so secure. 
She turned toward the hills—serene in 
their strength. And all unconsciously she 
thought her prayer aloud: “ Lord, is it 
I who am about to betray Thee?—To do 
Thy will—or my will ?” 

Jarvis fell back. “I’m only a black 
sheep,” he said, “ not worth saving. 
Them Injuns you spoke of are better 
worth while.” The deceptive humility 
of the. man, born of a sudden revelation 
of her character, carried the day. A lit¬ 
tle later he won his point and—practical¬ 
ly—the woman; but for the moment he 
had been sincere. 

She gently dismissed him when his er¬ 
rand was done, and no pretext that his 
nimble wits could devise could shake her 
resolution. But when he had gone she 
watched horse and rider as they climbed 
and dipped the trail, watched them till 
they were one with the blur of the sky¬ 
line melting into the blue. Then she 
went far away from the camp, and throw¬ 
ing herself face downward on the earth, 
she prayed the frantic prayers of a worn- 


106 Harpers Novelettes 

an who sees her little, every-day, familiar 
world blow away like sand at the coming 
of a storm. 

Town awoke next morning to find itself 
conscious of heroic promptings. It want¬ 
ed to vault to its saddle and ride off to 
knightly deeds. It did not know in the 
least what was the matter with it, but 
separately and unitedly it was in love 
with the woman preacher. The doors of 
Magee’s yawned wide, hut there was no 
coming nor going, and upon the unholy 
little settlement rested a Sabbath calm 
such as they remembered at home. The 
mood of town became contagious; it 
absorbed independent elements floating 
through its dingy civic channels, and 
stamped them with the current infection. 
The fame of the woman preacher spread 
to the uttermost eddy of the tiny settle¬ 
ment; those who had not heard her were 
swept up and borne along on the en¬ 
thusiasm of those who had. And town 
presented the unprecedented spectacle of 
animation suspended for the great event 
of the day—the prayer-meeting on the 
plain of No-Smoke. 

Daily the men presented themselves 
humbly as pilgrims at a shrine. There 
was not one of them who would not cheer¬ 
fully have made a crony of death for the 


The Prophetess 107 

chance of her favor, and yet there was 
not one who thought himself worthy to 
kiss the hem of her garment. Jarvis, 
be it said, had no share in these hu¬ 
milities. He thought himself worthy any 
favor that his vandal hand might grasp. 
Women were dolls to Jarvis—dolls of 
small consequence. For the same reason 
—the courage that rushes in and casteth 
out fear—it was Jarvis who elected to 
act as deputy and bring the gifts of 
game to the camp. During the visits 
he managed to establish something ap¬ 
proaching intimacy with the old man. 
He led him to talk of the days when he 
had been a power in the politics of the 
corner store at home; the days before 
Miriam had sold their all and gone to 
preach in the wilderness. The old man 
had begun to look forward to these vis¬ 
its of J arvis as agreeable intervals 
of secularity. 

It had come to be the last day; the 
prayer-meeting that evening would bring 
the week to a close. Miriam, spent with 
the vigil of many wakeful nights, torn 
by cruel questionings, took her over¬ 
burdened spirit to the silent counsel of 
the great plain where it gave to the 
valley. Her resting-place was a giant 
boulder enshrined in the twilight of the 


108 Harper's Novelettes 

willow grove, which became as the judg¬ 
ment-seat to the woman preacher. There 
were stern questionings to be put by 
Miriam the judge, which Miriam the 
woman must answer. An hour passed, 
the inquisition lagged; the judge came 
down from the bench and joined hands 
with the prisoner in the dock, the culprit, 
in whom there began to grow a subdued 
choking suspense: “Would he come? 
No, he could not be coming or her heart 
would not drag like an anchored thing.” 
Then, for a moment, she saw the question 
clearly,—she had consented to remain 
because her will, fluid, unstable, had 
flowed into the mould of his inclination 
like water into a vessel. She shut her 
eyes and prayed for strength, and when 
she opened them horse and rider stood 
sharp against the sky-line. The wisdom 
of the judge, the perturbation of the 
woman, prompted nothing more than a 
mouthful of futile incongruous speeches. 

He slid from his horse. There was 
about him the air of one who brings 
great treasure; youth and spring and sun¬ 
shine and great strength he seemed to 
heap at her feet. 

“I’ve come for my answer, Miriam.” 
He took her hand like a flower already 
plucked—a flower whose fragrance had 


The Prophetess 109 

grown to be something of a matter of 
course. It was this imperious quality 
that was at the root of Jarvis’s success. 
He rode at life full tilt, the force of 
victory in his very aim. There was no 
time for questionings. The clatter of 
his horse’s hoofs claimed attention, and 
the beauty, the insolence, the precision 
of his aim won the day. 

He brushed aside her arguments; he 
had not come to listen to objections, but 
to trample them underfoot. They loved 
—that was the supreme answer. What 
did they owe the world, their world, a 
handful of locoed cow-punchers,—every 
mother’s son of whom was in love with 
her and lacked the wit to know it? They 
came snivelling after salvation,—much 
use they had of it in the lives they led. 

Miriam received these statements as so 
many indictments against herself. They 
had come to hear her, then, because she 
was a woman,—of her ministerings there 
had been no need. She hung her head 
with the shame of it. 

But Jarvis had again taken up the reel 
of his argument, flung it broadcast, un¬ 
wound it so swiftly that her dazed per¬ 
ceptions could scarce follow. Her father 
would be happier in town. The make¬ 
shifts of the wagon life were too hard 


no 


Harper's Novelettes 


on one of his years. Leave him what 
money there was left, and when they 
should be settled in California they 
could send for him. Her own work 
should go on; it would be all the better 
for a little happiness. He would lend 
her gladly to her poor, to the sick, to 
those in tribulation. She should teach 
him the secret of her beautiful serv¬ 
ice,—together they would do the work 
she loved. 

For one pitilessly clear moment Miri¬ 
am saw the true and the false go up and 
down like buckets in a well. She saw 
her arid journeyings over the desert, the 
fretful complaining of her father, the 
hunger, the thirst, the desolation, the lit¬ 
tle done, the undone vast. And then 
this man had come and held the cup of 
life enchantingly to her lips, the cup 
that she must put from her because it 
was unholy. 

But again the man's voice was adjust¬ 
ing the balances, turning her little world 
awry by its potent sorcery. And Miriam 
sat on the judgment-seat, a dazed spec¬ 
tator at the drama of her life. “ The 
good that's in the world when the heart 
is happy! It overflows, my dear, like 
that little singing creek bringing plenty 
to the ranch-lands below. I feel it in 


Ill 


The Prophetess 

my heart, all the generous promptings 
that ”—he laughed up at her boyishly— 
“ that I ain’t had a bowin’ acquaintance 
with for years. Ah, my girl, the taste 
of life had grown sour in my mouth 
till I heard your voice that day on No- 
Smoke,—the day I grinned, Miriam—do 
you remember ?” 

She remembered that, and every mo¬ 
ment he had been in her life from that 
first evening. They were silent, the 
shadows were growing longer, the magic 
of that perfect day made the gift of 
silent comradery an estimable estate. 
No-Smoke had the quiescent delights of 
the land of lotus. 

And presently they could hear the old 
man’s quavering treble calling for Miri¬ 
am from below. 

“Father is calling.” She sprang up, 
clutching at this forlorn hope of escape. 
Jarvis caught and crushed her to him: 

“ To-morrow morning, at sunrise. I’ll 
have the horses ready.” 

She struggled for a moment, like a 
frantic child, then was quiet. 

“ To-morrow morning, at sunrise,” he 
said, as one who impresses a lesson. And 
she repeated the words after him like one 
speaking in sleep. 

No-Smoke will never forget that last 


11 2 


Harper's Novelettes 


prayer-meeting. They all came hut Jar¬ 
vis, who pleaded that he had work to do, 
and—with a shrug—that he had grown 
a little tired of preaching petticoats; so 
they had ridden away without him, while 
the sun was yet an hour high, in all their 
ruffianly picturesqueness of apparel— 
spurs, sombreros, cartridge-belts, shaps, 
and silk handkerchiefs whipping the 
breeze, their faces as grave as if their 
errand had been a lynching. Miriam 
did not keep them long waiting. She had 
been ready, though it was earlier by half 
an hour than the time set for the service. 
She looked neither to the right nor left 
as she walked without a trace of self- 
consciousness to the big uncovered wagon 
that was to serve as a pulpit. The change 
that had come over her in the last twenty- 
four hours was startling. She was no 
longer the young sibyl whose heart is 
wrung that she must speak the sorrowful 
words of human destiny; she was a wom¬ 
an who had drained the chalice of living 
to its last dregs; a woman who looked 
at them with a face like the worn bed 
of a torrent. The golden quality of her 
voice—a yearning note that sang beneath 
its sweetness and would have been po¬ 
tent to solace souls in the pit—had fled. 
The prophetess in her had turned to dust 


The Prophetess 113 

and ashes. Her eyes were wide, as one 
who walks in sleep, her face had the 
pallor of death, her voice rang harsh in 
bitterly accusing accents: 

“ For I have sold Thee, my Master, for a 
paltrier thing than the thirty pieces, and 
though my hands were red I went about 
and made believe to do Thy work. Like 
Judas I have wept till mine eyes are 
blinded to Thy mercies, and no sound 
comes to mine ears but the wailing of 
the damned. Lift me up, O God, lest 
the waters of despair close over me!” 

Once, twice, she swayed; then fell for¬ 
ward. The unconsciousness was but mo¬ 
mentary, for again she faced them, 
weak of body, but not infirm of will. 
“ Go, all of you,—you have no need of 
my shepherding.” 

It was dark on the plain of Mo-Smoke. 
The moon ploughed through a furrow of 
blackness, then left the ungracious night 
to its own dour mood. Very small and 
futile seemed the temporary home-making 
of the woman preacher on that stark, 
lonely plain. The woman herself lay on 
the piled bedquilts within the tent, and 
from time to time the old man looked at 
her with the helpless concern of a child. 
They were quite alone. But presently 
she began to turn restlessly and, in spite 


Harper's Novelettes 


114 

of her father’s protestations, to occupy 
herself with domestic affairs. 

“Are you mad?” he called, angrily, to 
her, when he saw that she had caught 
the horses and was harnessing them to 
the wagon. “ Are you stark mad to try to 
travel to-night, when you fainted, and ben 
making a fool of yourself in the bargain ?” 

“ Dear father,” she answered, with 
loving forbearance, “ God is leading us 
away from this dreadful place. This 
place of temptation. Only trust Him.” 
He watched her in silent wonder. But 
a little while and she had been so 
feeble, and now she moved and did as 
if there had been magic in her veins. 
And presently all was in readiness 
for the exodus. It was the sick woman 
who forced the initiative, who led the 
protesting old man to the wagon, helped 
him in, put her arms about him as one 
would soothe an ailing child. The horses, 
fresh from their week’s grazing, tossed 
their heads and sniffed the air in readi¬ 
ness for the journey. Eight iron-shod 
hoofs struck sparks from the road as they 
sped across the old snake trail, and 
presently they came to the fork of the 
road, and the lights of town flashed like 
stars in the purple west. The upper fork 
led to the solitary trail across the desert. 


The Prophetess 


1*5 

across the great white plains of alkali. 
The lower fork dipped toward the town 
with its lights and human comradeship. 
But without a moment’s hesitation the 
woman took the fork that led above the 
town—and temptation. Her father had 
dozed and wakened, and when they were 
well along the desert road and the lights 
of town were far behind he asked, 

“ Isn’t it very dark on the trail, 
Miriam ?” 

“ Very dark on the trail, father.” 


A Little Pioneer 


BY PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS 

N the autumn day when Nick 



McKey came driving the bi- 


monthly stage, full four days 
late, into Poco del Oro mining-camp, 
with a wee small child, hardly three years 
of age, on the seat up top beside his dusty 
knee, the trials, tribulations, and per¬ 
plexities of the insignificant community 
were instantly augmented,—for the new- 
come little pilgrim was a girl. 

McKey approached the town in the 
late afternoon, when the toilers were 
nearly all come down from their hillside 
mining-holes and the major portion of 
the camp’s inhabitants had focussed in 
and about the grocery-post-office-saloon. 

They took a quick, sharp look at 
a sight such as never had been seen 
in the camp before — the dusty Nick 
with a dusty little blue-clad figure at his 
side, as the four dusty horses and the 
dusty coach came toiling up the final 


A Little Pioneer 


117 

climb of the highway to halt at length 
in their midst. And the tiny passenger 
was as smiling and winning a bit of in¬ 
nocent, delighted femininity as any one 
could desire. 

“ Well,” said a voice, “ I’ll be damned!” 

“ Civilization!” yelled another. “ Hur¬ 
ray fer McKey, a-fetchin’ us civilization!” 

“ Whoa!” commanded the driver, kick¬ 
ing on his brake. “ Shut up, you Grigg; 
you’re scarin’ the team. What’s eatin’ 
you, man? This ain’t nuthin’ but that 
there William Scott’s little gal, come by 
reg’lar express, accordin’ to orders.” 

“ Scott’s little— Oh!” said a small, 
bearded man at the wheel of the stage. 
“ Why, Nick, I’d clean forgot. He sent 
to have her come, of course; he told me 
all about it, Nick; but, say—poor Scott!— 
he died a week ago, and natchelly you 
knowed nothin’ about it.” 

An inarticulate chorus of murmurs in 
the crowd made the silence that followed 
peculiarly intense. 

“Dead?” repeated McKey at last. 
“ I’ve fetched her here, all alone in the 
world, and the little gal’s father is dead! 
Scott ? Then he wasn’t as strong as 
he looked.” 

“ He was thin as a pick,” imparted the 
small man, speaking with suppressed emo- 


n8 Harper's Novelettes 

tion. “ It was pluck made him look kind 
of strong. . . . By gingerbread! Nick, I 
wonder what we’re goin’ for to do ?” 

“ ’Bout what ?” inquired a teamster. 
“ He’s buried, Tom, best we could on the 
money. What more can we do ?” 

“I was thinkin’ of this here little ex¬ 
press passenger,” answered Tom; “the 
little gal, arrove here all alone.” 

Those of the men who were not already 
gazing at the child on the seat above 
their heads now directed their attention 
to her unanimously. From such a broad¬ 
side of masculine glances as she now 
found herself receiving the little thing 
shrank a trifle against the arm of McKey, 
whom she seemed to regard as an institu¬ 
tion of security and trust. Despite her 
slight confusion, however, she smiled 
upon every kindly-looking person in the 
group. And what a wonderful bright- 
brown pair of eyes they were from which 
she smiled!—roguish, challenging, trust¬ 
ful, unafraid, and lustrous as jewels new¬ 
ly fashioned. Her two little chubby hands 
were busily twisting the hem of her 
dusty blue dress, her two chubby legs 
were straight out before her, the worn 
little shoes projecting over the edge of 
the cushion. On her head she wore a 
faded brown woollen hood, beneath 


A Little Pioneer 119 

the edge of which the brightest and 
lightest old-gold curl of hair was pret¬ 
tily waiting to dance. Alone in the 
mountains with all these men, she seem¬ 
ed as happy and as friendly as if her 
one possible baby-wish had been granted 
at once by the goddess of chance. That 
she could not know of her losses and her 
plight, could not comprehend the talk of 
the men who blurted out the truth, was, as 
a matter of fact, the one touch of mercy 
so far vouchsafed her helpless babyhood. 

“Kind of a bully little gal,” ventured 
one of the miners. 

“ Of course she’s a bully little gal,” 
replied the bearded Tom Devoe. “But, 
Scott bein’ gone—” 

“ That’s it,” interrupted the driver 
from his seat. “ Scott bein’ gone, who’s 
a-goin’ to take the kid and pay? There’s 
two hundred dollars express charges for 
bringin’ her in from that Utah camp, for 
it’s near three hundred miles of stagin’, 
and her sent forward by fast express, and 
‘ handle with care ’ told every driver, spe¬ 
cial. Did Scott leave the money, Tom, 
for to pay the company’s charges ?” 

“ He didn’t leave money enough to pay 
for all we done to make the funeral look 
like the genuine article,” imparted Devoe. 
“ I don’t know why he sent for the pore 


x20 Harper's Novelettes 

little gal, except T guess there was noth¬ 
in’ else to do; and of course he didn’t 
reckon on cashin’ in his stack so sudden. 
You see, he never had no luck, anyhow. 
Him and his pretty young wife struck 
out from down in Ohio, four years ago, 
for to emigrant acrost the plains and git 
to the mines with a load of things to sell 
and make a stake—and they jest about 
had a hell of a time, accordin’ to some 
ways of thinkin’.” 

u Don’t be swearin’ before the little 
gal,” cautioned the driver, who had 
“ cussed ” his team over forty miles of 
mountain ruggedness. “ Go kind of de¬ 
cent,—-anyways for a starter. With a boy 
kid everybody knows it’s difPrent. That’s 
all, Tom; go on with your rat-killin’.” 

“ Scuse me,” answered Tom. “ Well, 
as I was sayin’, first Scott got sick, 
then his wife was kind of ailin’, and 
up and had a little gal baby out on the 
plains. Then—” 

“ This here little gal ?” interrupted 
Grigg. “ Little Civilization ?” 

“ Yep—same child. Then after that 
they Lost two horses in the fordin’, and 
some of their freight was burned at night 
by Injuns, and some was traded off for 
hay and grub, and a lot went to square 
ofi the doctor when the baby come along,— 


A Little Pioneer 


I 2 I 


and Scott said they’d ’a’ bin mighty glad 
to trade it all for her; and it took them 
near three years, after that, to git to a 
camp in Utah, and that’s where they quit 
a-goin’ for a while, till Scott got promise 
of a job out here in the Poco d’Oro 
mines, and—” 

“ Rottonest ’pology for mines I ever 
see,” interpolated a listener. 

“ Well, I don’t know,” answered Tom. 
“ Point is, Scott come on, leavin’ his wife 
and little gal behind, fer safety and fam’- 
ly comfort, over to that Utah camp—and 
it pretty soon no good to stay in, after 
the strike at Thunder River; and then 
he’s gittin’ news that Mrs. Scott was 
sick, and later she was dead, and the 
baby took by strangers. So Scott he sent 
to have her come, and here she is.” 

“ Yes—and two hundred dollars express 
charges, c. o. d.,” added McKey. “And 
who’s a-goin’ to pungle up the same?” 

There were many “ahems” to break 
an otherwise impressive silence. 

“Well, I don’t see how you can take 
her back—no place to take her,” ventured 
Devoe. “ Too pretty to take back, any¬ 
how. I’d hate to see you takin’ the little 
thing away,” and he looked at the child 
with a species of hunger in his eyes. “ I 
ain’t jest got the money,” Tom confessed. 


122 Harper's Novelettes 

“ If there’s anybody else—” and he looked 
about in the knot of men, only to find the 
attention of each one suddenly engrossed 
with something personal. 

Unfortunately, Poco del Oro had been 
more or less of a false alarm. Its wealth 
was still to be uncovered. Its first excite¬ 
ment had been dead a year, and many of 
its early population had departed. There 
was not a single family of man, wife, 
and children in the place. There was 
one good young woman remaining—Mis¬ 
tress Nancy Dunn, the daughter of Dunn 
who hauled in wood from the habitable 
world,—and she had said her nay to the 
marriage proposal of nearly every man 
in town. To little Tom Devoe she had 
answered thus no less than thrice, on the 
last occasion lending a species of em¬ 
phasis to her decision by dashing a 
bucketful of water in her suitor’s face, 
—with water at ten cents a gallon. 

Tom was reflectively dwelling on 
Nancy’s charms, despite his recent dis¬ 
couragements. He even saw new glim¬ 
merings of hope as he gazed fondly up 
at Scott’s little gal, smiling in coyness 
down upon him. 

“Well—Nick—if only I could borrow 
the money, why, perhaps—” he faltered, 
and again he left his sentence in the air. 


A Little Pioneer 123 

“ Borry ? Haw!” said a voice, and a 
few men guffawed. 

“ What’s her name?” inquired a spec¬ 
tator. 

“ Nancy,” answered Tom, in his pass¬ 
ing abstraction. 

“ Haw!” repeated that raucous voice. 

“We know ’bout that old game; but 
I mean the little gal’s,” explained the 
interrogator. “What’s the little gal’s 
name ?” 

“ Her folks,” said Devoe, “ they named 
her Prairie, fer where she was born. 
She’s a regular little pioneer; and I’d 
hate to see her took away from here.” 

“ Cash down, or return the shipment— 
them’s the orders on all the c. o. d.’s,” 
observed the driver, once again. “ I 
ain’t been drivin’ long, perhaps, but I 
know the rules—sometimes. So, Tom, 
if you want to keep the little passenger—” 

“ I’d like to see her stay, first rate,” 
said Tom, whose hunger for children was 
growing apace. “ There’s no place to 
take her if you fetch her back. . . . Say, 
Nick, couldn’t you leave her on thirty 
days’ trial? Begular thing for every ex¬ 
press to leave things on trial. You see, 
you could leave little Prairie that way, 
and after thirty days—why, either we’d 
pay the two hundred, or— We’d know 




124 Harper’s Novelettes 

more about things than we know jest now, 
dead sure. You see, Nick, it ain’t like 
as if ’twas a boy. You never can tell 
about gals. But you jest leave her with 
me on thirty days’ trial, for fun.” 

Nick scratched the back of his head. 

“ It sounds like it might be ’cordin’ to 
some of the rules I’ve heard,” said he. 
“ I know I’ve heard ’bout sech an arrange¬ 
ment somewheres or other; but, Tom, I’d 
have to ask Barney to ask ole Pete to ask 
young Tomkins to ask the company’s 
agent, down to the end of Stetson’s run.” 

“All right,” Tom agreed. “You can 
leave her with me on that understandin’.” 

The tiny passenger, sitting all this 
while at the driver’s side, was duly re¬ 
moved from the seat. She stuck like a 
bur to McKey’s dusty coat and had to 
be taken off with care. Nevertheless, as 
a bur will stick impartially to the very 
next garment presenting an opportuni¬ 
ty, she adhered to the faded green of 
Devoe’s old vest with ready cheer and 
friendliness, looking back at the driver 
without a reproach from her newly ac¬ 
quired situation. 

A subtle ecstasy spread throughout 
Tom Devoe’s being as he felt the warm 
little burden on his arm; and away to his 
little shack he trudged in triumph. 


A Little Pioneer 


125 

The time for men to become solicitous 
concerning the management of property 
is the moment in which some other in¬ 
dividual acquires the property in ques¬ 
tion. There were six worthy citizens of 
Poco del Oro whose growing anxiety 
over the rearing of little Prairie Scott 
became so acute, that very first evening 
of the tiny girl’s arrival, that a visit to 
her newest home became absolutely im¬ 
perative. They moved on the cabin in 
a body. 

The shack was half a dugout, half 
a structure, the front elevation being 
fashioned of barrel - staves, cleverly 
lapped and securely hammered to a frame¬ 
work of beams. It possessed a window 
with a broken glass, and a solid maple 
door, brought straight from New York by 
way of San Francisco and the isthmus, 
and sold to build a house around in any 
known style of the art. A dim red light 
was shown in the window as the men 
came boldly to the place. Just at the 
moment of their arrival a fearful din and 
clatter within the cabin abruptly as¬ 
saulted the silence. 

“ There!” said the muffled voice of 
Tom. “ Ain’t you busy ?” 

The men went in. Little Prairie was 
there. She had just succeeded in drag- 


126 


Harper's Novelettes 


ging down a large collection of pots and 
pans, all of them laden with rich, greasy 
soot. For herself, she was generously 
daubed with black from head to foot, 
particularly as to hands and face. 

Tom was looking at her helplessly. He 
seemed relieved at beholding the number 
and size of his visitors. 

“Darn’dest little kid I ever saw,” said 
he. “ She’s burned up one of my boots 
already, and spoiled my dress-up pants, 
and broke my gun. Awful healthy little 
kid—awful ambitious and willin’. . . . 
But she sort of likes old Tom.” 

The little object of his summary ap¬ 
peared to comprehend that something was 
due to Tom by way of establishing her 
compensating virtues. She came towards 
him enthusiastically and threw her arms 
about his knees. 

“Baby—yoves — ole — Tom,” she an¬ 
nounced, in broken accents of sincerity. 
“ Baby— do —yove—ole—Tom.” 

Tom caught her up, and she clutched 
his beard in both her sooty hands, and 
smiled in his eyes bewitchingly. 

“ It’s lucky your house is pretty 
strong,” remarked one of the visiting 
contingent. “I kin see you’re goin’ to 
raise her up deestructive.” 

“You can’t begin readin’ her nice 


A Little Pioneer 


127 


gentle stories a minute too soon,” add¬ 
ed another. “ Have you got the Bun¬ 
ion’s Progress, by a feller named Mr. 
Christian ?” 

“Headin’?” said the camp’s profound- 
est pessimist, scornfully. “ What she 
wants is work. Leave her chop the wood; 
that ’ll gentle her down.” 

“ Say! do you think this child is anoth¬ 
er of them dead-from-workin’ wives of 
your’n?” demanded Devoe, indignantly. 
“ If you fellers came here to pesterfy 
and try to run the show, why, you’re jest 
a mite too late, boys. Savvy? I reckon 
this here cat-hop kind of elects me gen¬ 
eral sup’intendent.” 

Civilization Grigg was one of the 
visitors. He stood there in rapture, 
gazing on the child, his nature yearn¬ 
ing for a small caress. 

“We only come to offer a few kind 
and useful suggestions,” he now ex¬ 
plained. “ That’s all.” 

“You can leave out the kind ones,” 
Tom replied. “ I never heard no 1 kind ’ 
suggestions yet that wasn’t ground pretty 
sharp on two or three edges.” 

“ Biggest lot of cheek I ever see,” 
grumbled the pessimist. “ If it gits any 
bigger it ’ll crowd the mountains off 
the camp.” 


128 


Harper's Novelettes 


“Well, don’t you hang around and git 
made uncomfortable when it happens,” 
answered Devoe. “ How about that, lit¬ 
tle honey?” 

“ Baby—do—yove—ole—Tom,” the tot 
repeated, smearing his neck with a sooty 
essence of her growing affection as she 
gave him an enviable hug. 

Those of the men who had not dis¬ 
covered seats upon arriving now sat in 
the bunk at the end of the room. Four 
of the half-dozen visitors were desperate¬ 
ly seining their minds to net some small 
remark that would sound as if they real¬ 
ly knew a baby from a grindstone. 

“ Well—’hem!” said Billy Partridge, 
the smallest man in town,—“the only 
thing I thought of, Tom, was the climate. 
Are you dead-certain sure this climate 
is just exactly right to raise up a girl 
youngster into?” 

“ Certain!” said Tom, with ready con¬ 
viction. “ Climate is generally pretty 
decent anywheres till it gits sort of 
sp’iled by too many people cussin’ at it, 
night and day. But there ain’t men or 
wimmin enough in all Nevady yet to 
swear this climate sour.” 

“ I ain’t seen a baby for so long, I 
couldn’t tell laughin’ from cryin’,” con¬ 
fessed big Dan White. “ I used to know 


A Little Pioneer 


129 


how to hold one, Tom, and maybe I ain’t 
forgot.” He came towards little Prairie 
tentatively. “ Want to take an assay 
of me?” he inquired, and he held forth 
his arms invitingly. 

The youngster looked at him gravely, 
then snuggled coyly up to Tom and 
smiled like a born coquette. 

“ Guess not,” decided Dan; but no 
sooner were his arms again at his side 
than Prairie made overtures to lure him 
back. He took her, somewhat clumsily, 
and yet with a knowledge of the business. 
Then, when he had her, he knew not 
what to say. 

“ You’re doin’ pretty fancy, Miss 
Scott,” he informed her presently, and 
carried her over to the window. 

Tom commenced to restore a sem¬ 
blance of order in the cabin. 

“A woman ain’t never so young she 
can’t raise hell in about two minutes,” 
he observed, as a generalization, and 
sagely he added, “ That’s one of the rea¬ 
sons we like ’em.” 

“ Bad sign when a gal kid takes too 
sudden to strangers,” grumbled the pessi¬ 
mist. “ When I was a child—” 

“You never was no child,” interrupted 
Devoe. “ You was born so old you was 
already gittin’ fermented.” 


130 Harpers Novelettes 

Dan White had thought of another bit 
of information to impart to little Prairie. 

“Miss Scott, this weather is gen’ral 
throughout the United States and Can¬ 
ady,” said he; “ raw, with westerly wind.” 

“Yes, and that reminds me, I’ve got 
to cut up some wearin’ apparel and make 
her a warm woollen dress,” said the 
practical Tom, who thereupon produced 
scissors, needles, thread, a sailmaker’s 
“palm,” in lieu of a thimble, and the 
faded magenta garment he had in his 
mind to convert to brand-new usefulness. 
“I long ago found out,” he concluded, 
“that charity often begins at the tail 
of a shirt that's worn out higher up.” 

He now had White place the young¬ 
ster on the floor while he “ sized her 
up ” for the dress that was to be. She 
started away, when the measuring was 
finished, to make her fiftieth tour of 
the cabin. 

“ Regular born prospector,” Tom ob¬ 
served, as he watched her going. “ Never 
saw her equal in the world. Samples 
everything in sight in about two bats of 
your eye.” 

The small “ pioneer ” stumbled flat 
across some obstruction on the floor, but 
was not in the least disconcerted. She 
stood on her head and feet for a mo- 


A Little Pioneer 131 

ment, regaining her perpendicular in 
youngster fashion, and finding that one 
of her shoes was holding down a soft, 
dark something that she wanted, she stood 
there solidly and pulled at the object 
with all her sturdy might. It presently 
tore, and so came up about her chubby 
leg, her foot having cleaved through the 
substance. Encased as it were in this 
ring that would not release her knee, she 
approached her foster-father laboriously. 

“ Tate it off,” she requested. “ Tom, 
tate it off.” 

“ What is it, then ?” said the busy Tom. 
“ Why—it must be somebody’s hat!” 

The pessimist snatched it, somewhat 
excitedly. “ Mine—and plumb ruined 
forever!” he said. “Stay here? me?— 
in your shack, with such a child as 
that? Not for a million in gold! A 
terrible, devastatin’ scourge!” and out of 
the cabin, in anger, he went, and slammed 
the door behind him. 

But the others, when they finally de¬ 
parted from the shack, went forth with 
a quieter spirit. 

“You mark my word, the wonderful 
men was all of ’em little,” said Partridge. 
“ There was little old Bony Napoleon, 
and now here’s Tom Devoe.” 

No corner of the earth is so remote 


132 Harpers Novelettes 

that a man may forever escape a visit 
from desperation. Even Tom Devoe was 
receiving marked attentions from this 
brother-in-fact of common worry. 

It was not in the matter of sewing, 
cooking, or amusing that Tom found his 
resources lacking; it all lay in something 
ascribable to things feminine that trou¬ 
bles seemed to hover over the cabin. 
Tom had made the dress, and made it 
well. He had a skill as fine as a woman’s 
with his scissors and his threads, and 
he had the loving wish that prompts 
domestic energy. He had made little 
stockings and a “ nightie,” warm as 
toast. He was making little leather 
boots, already painted brilliant red, and 
as crude in construction as they were 
gaudy in decoration; and other things 
he had in process of planning; neverthe¬ 
less there were family cares that baffled 
his “ motherly ” possibilities. 

For the fourth time he sought Miss 
Nancy’s presence. She had heard all 
about the thirty-day trial of the child, 
and the look on the face of her suitor 
when he came was a sign she read with 
ease. The “ trial ” was growing intense. 

“ You ain’t been around to see the lit¬ 
tle pioneer,” said he. “ I kind of ex¬ 
pected you’d sort of float around.” 


A Little Pioneer 


133 


“ I ain’t lost no double-orphan chil¬ 
dren,” said Nancy, “ and they ain’t no 
great curiosity.” 

“ They are when they’ve got a single 
man for a father and mother,” answered 
Tom. “And she’d be a curiosity any¬ 
how, you bet! She’s wonderful healthy 
and willin’. You really ought to see her, 
jest for fun.” 

“ It’s more fun guessin’ what you come 
here for to-night,” she said, and her eyes 
were snappily bright. 

Tom wriggled on his chair uneasily. 
He knew her guessing of old. 

“Well, then—’hem!” he faltered, col¬ 
oring yet more red beneath his florid 
complexion,—“ are you—goin’ for to say 
you’ll up and do it, Nancy?—hey?” 

“No, I ain’t goin’ to up and do it, nor 
down and do it, neither,” she told him, 
with decision. “ I told you so before.” 

“ Yes, but this time you git a chance 
to be a mother right from the jump,” he 
argued, soberly. “ Ain’t that something ?” 

“ No, it ain’t. No second-hand moth¬ 
er for me,” she said. “ I reckon I’ll be 
the mother of my own bawlin’ kids when 
I start.” 

“ She ain’t a great one to cry,” Tom 
hastened to impart. “ I’ll guarantee to 
git up nights and walk her if she cries. 


134 Harper's Novelettes 

Come on, Nancy, be a real nice gal 
and say you will. Your father’s per¬ 
fectly willin’.” 

“ Didn’t I say no ?” she demanded. 
“My father, hey? Because he can’t git 
away with my little sack of money he’d 
let me marry any decent man in camp, 
and then sit down and wait to see if my 
lovely husband could git those three hun¬ 
dred dollars. No, sir, I won’t, I won’t, I 
won’t, and that’s where the story says 
F-i-n-i-s—with the h left off every time. 
So you might as well go home and forget 
you came.” 

“ If you’d seen the little gal you’d 
answer different,” said Devoe, persistent¬ 
ly. “ Hadn’t you better see her first ?” 

“I’ve seen her, don’t you worry,” an¬ 
swered Miss Dunn. “ What do you think 
I am? And don’t I know that seven 
days have gone already, and only twenty- 
three more is left of your thirty, and you 
thought you’d marry me and git my 
money to pay them two hundred dollars, 
c. o. d., at the end of the time? I said 
I won’t, and now you git, Tom Devoe, 
for I ain’t got time to hear you talk.” 

“All right,”* said Tom; “but you’re 
’way off your boundaries concernin’ your 
money. I never had no idea in the world 
of askin’ you to pay up the charges.” 


A Little Pioneer 


135 


This was the truth. He had well- 
nigh forgotten that thirty-day condition 
and the price still due for retaining lit¬ 
tle Prairie. He went away from Nancy’s 
with a large new collection of worries. 

It was raining and blowing together 
that night, but he seemed to be oblivious 
of everything. A warm little stove in his 
heart was glowing cheerily so soon as he 
came to his house. 

And inside the place big Dan White 
had the baby on his knee. 

“ Miss Scott,” he said, as Tom entered, 
“ this storm is gen’ral throughout the 
United States and Canady.” 

The following week there was snow on 
the ground, and little Miss Scott, not a 
whit less busy for the chill, got lost for 
an hour in the nearest drift, and nearly 
froze her tiny feet. She developed a cold 
and a croupy-sounding cough that fright¬ 
ened poor Tom half to death. 

It was when that tiny cold was two 
days old and Prairie was ill and listless 
and weak, no longer blithesomely “dee- 
structive,” but needing such a tender love 
and care as only a woman may bestow, 
that Tom’s desperation reached its cul¬ 
minating - point. He feared the little 
pioneer was perhaps already dying; and 


136 Harpers Novelettes 

then the man was suddenly prepared for 
any deed of daring. 

“ My poor little gal has got to have a 
mother,” he declared. “ It ain’t been 
fair; it ain’t been right; and now 
it’s gone too far. She’s goin’ to have 
whatever there is in this here Poco 
d’Oro camp, if it takes a gun to clinch 
the point.” 

He strapped on a mighty revolver, full 
of lead and dirty black powder, and 
marched him straight to the home of 
Nancy Dunn. 

“ We’re goin’ to git married—right 
now,” said he, “so, Nancy—put on your 
duds.” 

Miss Dunn was tremendously amazed. 
She was also a little alarmed. 

“ Why — you, Tom Devoe — you’re 
crazy!” she stammered. “ Why, what do 
you—mean? You know I—said I would¬ 
n’t, and—” 

“Yep! I know what you said,” he 
interrupted, drawing his gun with a 
shaking hand, “ but you’re goin’ to change 
your mind, and change it quick. That 
pore little motherless child, she’s goin’ to 
have a woman for to love. She’s goin’ 
to have some proper care. She’s goin’ 
to have a decent show to live and grow 
up proper—savvy that ? And you are the 


A Little Pioneer 


i37 


one decent girl in the camp, and you and 
me is a-goin’ to go and git married— 
that’s the game. You put on your hat, 
or come along without, for we’re goin’ 
right now to Justice Knapp.” 

Nancy had long been accustomed to 
pistols, but never before had she seen 
one in this awful threatening aspect, its 
bullets so terribly obvious, its muzzle so 
blankly centred on her face. She looked 
at it nervously, then at the eyes behind 
it—the two eyes grown desperate and 
marked with signs of worry. 

She feared the man more than the 
weapon—and she feared those bullets hor¬ 
ribly. She put on her bonnet, shaking 
in fright all the while. Her impulse 
was to cry, but all her crying faculties 
were shrinking down in terror. As one 
no longer consulted by her own volition, 
she went from the door. 

“ I ain’t a-goin’ to hold this gun on you 
constant,” Tom informed her, indulgent¬ 
ly, trembling himself, u but don’t you 
try no shenanigan, not for a minute!” 

In silence they wended their way to 
the home of the justice of the peace. 
Briefly and promptly, despite Miss 
Nancy’s reluctance, the old - fashioned, 
time-honored formula for making a unit 
out of two warring individuals was pro- 


138 Harper's Novelettes 


nounced, after which, still awed and 
paralyzed with fear, the new-made wife 
was led quietly away. 

Convoyed by her armed and sinister 
husband, Nancy went with him quite to 
his shack. But she took not so much 
as a look at little Prairie, lying in a 
blanket before the open fire, engrossed 
as she was in watching Tom. No sooner 
had he laid off his huge revolver than 
she pounced upon it and threw it out of 
the window, where it disappeared in a 
drift of snow. Then ensued a brief, 
sharp denouement , after which the door 
was wrenched wildly open and out ran 
the bride, leaving Tom, bewildered and 
dazed, sitting on the floor, with just a 
ragged piece of calico in his hand as a 
souvenir of a quick divorce. 

That night all the story was old in the 
camp; and big Dan White, when he came 
to Tom's, saw signs of resignation to a 
life of single blessedness depicted large 
upon the homely countenance of the 
whilom groom. 

“Have you heerd from Nancy this 
evenin'?” he said. “How was she at 
last accounts?” 

“ Pursuin' the even terror of her 
ways,” said Tom, “jest about the same 
as before.” 


A Little Pioneer 


i39 


“Well,” reflected Dan, “you can take 
a horse to the crick, Tom, of course—” 

“ I know,” said Tom; “ I know all about 
that part which says you can’t make him 
drink—and, Dan, if the horse is a mare 
—she’ll prob’ly throw you down and run 
away into the bargain.” 

Miss Prairie Seott was only half-way 
her “ healthy and willin’ ” little self, 
after five long days of cold and fever and 
masculine care, and Tom was attempting 
to lighten her life with tales of her 
“ mother’s ” shocking conduct, when the 
dark wing of fate was suddenly over the 
cabin, obscuring all the light. 

The bimonthly stage was once more in 
town, and with it had come a harsh de¬ 
cree. The mighty express corporation 
had forwarded a quick decision in the 
case of Tom’s small pioneer. The two 
hundred dollars “ charges ” for her trans¬ 
portation as an express parcel must be 
paid without another day’s delay, or the 
child must be immediately taken away 
and delivered to the company’s agent, 
three hundred miles towards the east. 

Devoe heard the “ sentence ” like one 
in a trance. He had put off the thought 
of the whole affair till his full thirty days 
should be counted. He was dazed thus 


140 Harper's Novelettes 

to find himself obliged to face the crisis 
prematurely. The driver now come was 
a man unknown to Tom or any of his 
friends. But, for that matter, friendship 
could hardly have availed to alter the 
company’s attitude of relentlessness. 

“I’ll try to hustle the money,” said 
Devoe. “ I couldn’t let the baby go. 
Why, man, she’d die. She couldn’t make 
a trip like that such weather as this, and 
her jest pickin’ up a little after bein’ 
pretty sick. I couldn’t leave her go.” 

As a matter of fact, he was suddenly 
sick throughout his entire system. It 
was one worry more than he could readily 
bear. His own little hoard contained ex¬ 
actly thirty-five dollars; and how many 
friends could he count on here in this 
poor little worked-out camp, where he 
and others were hanging on from sheer 
force of habit and hope ? 

He thought of defiance, of thrusting a 
pistol in the driver’s face and bidding 
him run for his life. He thought of 
flight, with the child in his arms, across 
the hills to a western town. The huge 
barrier of mountains, now white with 
snow and chill with icy blasts, rose be¬ 
fore him, silent, forbidding. 

Of all the six worthy citizens who had 
taken an interest sufficient to cause them 


A Little Pioneer 


141 

o visit the small pioneer, there were only- 
four who could lend assistance in raising 
a fund to defray those appalling charges. 
Civilization Grigg, who builded with 
mud, had fifteen dollars in all the world. 
He gave the entire sum. Billy Partridge 
could spare but an even five. The pessi¬ 
mist, masking his feeling behind a growl, 
came along with eight silver dollars; and 
big Dan White gave all he would have 
for a month, and it counted twenty-two. 
The total amount in the fund was eighty- 
five dollars. It lacked just one hundred 
and fifteen dollars of being sufficient— 
and resources thoroughly exhausted. 

Tom, Dan, Partridge—even the pessi¬ 
mist—all the worried clan spent the re¬ 
mainder of the day attempting to bribe 
the driver to take their all and leave 
the child in camp. He was harder than 
iron, in a quiet, decent way of unanswer¬ 
able logic that left the group at the cabin 
baffled and hopeless. 

“ I’ll come here and git her in the 
morning,” he said, and the long, cold 
night descended on the camp. 

The morning came, and with it no so¬ 
lution. Out of a flawless sky the sun 
was shining on a world of mountains 
dazzling white in the snow. The wheels 
of the swiftly approaching stage made 


142 Harper's Novelettes 

creaking notes as crisp as those of a 
violin. The men inside the cabin heard 
the sound with dread. 

Out in his shirt-sleeves went Devoe, 
his eyes dull red from sleeplessness. Be¬ 
side him stood his friends. 

“ Shaw,” he said to the driver, “ the 
little gal’s inside the shack—and that’s 
where she ought to be left, or God Al¬ 
mighty’s made a big mistake. God Al¬ 
mighty, I say. He gave this little kid 
to me, as sure as lie ever done anything 
good on earth. He knowed she didn’t 
have a decent friend in all this country, 
and He gave her to me to care for. You 
couldn’t take her off, and maybe see her 
die; you ain’t got the heart for to do it. 
Here’s all the money we kin raise—it’s 
eighty-five dollars, and nearly half the 
charges. Take that and ask the company 
if they can’t let off a little kid for less 
than the whole two hundred. If she 
hadn’t come by express, the stage fare 
wouldn’t ’a’ bin more than fifty dollars.” 

“ Devoe,” replied the driver, “ don’t 
talk this all over again. I hate to tell 
you no a thousand times. And I’ve got 
to make a start.” 

Tom looked weak and pale. His mind 
refused to conjure up another word of 
argument. 


A Little Pioneer 


143 


“ She’ll have to be wrapped real warm,” 
he said, and as one hard hit and no longer 
able to think or resist he turned towards 
the house. 

The pessimist growled at the driver in 
accents of biting sarcasm as vain as they 
were unique. 

When Tom came out of the house, 
with the child on his arm, she was lov¬ 
ingly patting his cheek. 

“ Baby —do — yove — ole — Tom,” she 
said, in her honest little coo. 

The man’s knees nearly gave way be¬ 
neath him. 

“ I can’t let her go—I can’t give her 
up,” he said to them all. “Boys—I’m 
goin’ to pay my fare and go along. I’ll 
work for her hard—I’ll work off the 
charges—I’ll git her all for my own—and 
some day maybe we’ll come back. I’ll—” 

He paused, and the baby lifted her 
pretty little head to listen to something 
in the passing breath of frost. It came 
from the rear of the cabin, a brisk creak, 
creak on the snow. 

Then suddenly, running in breathless 
haste, from around the corner of the 
shack came Nancy Dunn, her hair brown- 
ly flying in the crystal air, her eyes ablaze 
with eagerness. 

“ Here,” she panted at the driver— 


144 


Harper's Novelettes 


“here's your two hundred dollars—here 
it is! Take it—take it—you can’t—you 
can’t have—the baby!” 

For a moment there was absolute 
silence. 

“ Well—now—how’s this ?” inquired 
the startled driver. “ Who are you ?” 

“ I’m Tom’s—I’m Mrs. Devoe,” she 
said. “ I’m his wife—and I’ve just come 
home.” Her cheeks unfurled a rich and 
wholesome damask blush that made her 
positively handsome. She turned to Tom 
and took little Prairie in her arms. 

When he got his chance, big Dan 
White held the baby again on his knee. 
“ Miss Scott,” he said, “ this sunshine is 
gen’ral throughout the United States 
and Canady.” 


Back to Indiana 


BY ELMORE ELLIOTT PEAKE 

T HE rising sun had not yet drunk 
the dew from the grass in the door- 
yard of the lone cabin when the 
man mounted the forward hub of the 
prairie-schooner and bent a final glance 
into the dusky interior to make sure that 
nothing had been forgotten. He inven¬ 
toried the contents with his eye: a mat¬ 
tress for his wife, baby boy, and little 
Nellie to sleep on; blankets and com¬ 
forters—somewhat faded and ragged—for 
himself and Roy to make a bunk of, on 
the ground; a box of extra clothing, 
cooking utensils, lantern, rope, shotgun, 
family Bible—badly shattered,—and a 
hen-coop, containing seven pullets, lash¬ 
ed to the end-gate. A wooden bucket 
hung from the rear axletree, to which 
was also chained a black and white setter. 
The only superfluous article seemed to be 
a little mahogany bureau, battered and 
warped, but still retaining an air of dis- 


i 4 6 Harper's Novelettes 

tinction which set it apart from the other 
tawdry furnishings, and marked it as a 
family treasure. 

Daggett stepped to the ground again, 
and, folding his arms, swept his dull, 
faded eyes over the limitless savanna, 
still gray with the mists of night. Here, 
for five weary, heart-breaking years, he 
had pitted his puny arm against rebel¬ 
lious Nature and fought the elements on 
their chosen ground. He had been eaten 
up by grasshoppers; tossed by cyclones; 
alternately scorched by strange, hot 
winds and frozen by shrieking blizzards; 
desiccated by droughts and flooded by 
cloudbursts. His horses and cattle had 
sickened and died; his wife had faded 
and grown old in a day; one of his chil¬ 
dren had been laid under the tough, 
matted sod which almost turned the edge 
of a plough; and he, never rich, had 
grown poorer and poorer. It was not 
strange, perhaps, that he had come to 
look upon that vast, treeless expanse, the 
playground of elemental passions, as a 
monster lying in wait for his blood. 

“ The curse of God upon you, I hate 
you!” he burst out, with the sudden fury 
which the elements had taught him. But 
a better mood instantly following, his 
eyes softened with a light to which they 


Back to Indiana 


i47 


had long been strange. “Back to God’s 
country—back to Indiana!” he exclaimed, 
and laughed aloud. 

Boy, his nine-year-old boy, looked up 
at the unusual sound; but his father had 
plunged into the dismantled cabin again. 
He returned with a can of green paint 
in his hand, and had soon roughly let¬ 
tered the canvas wagon-top with the in¬ 
spired words, on one side, “ Back to 
God’s Country ”; on the other, “ Back 
to Indiana.” Then hurling the can of 
paint out into the sunburnt grass with 
all his strength, he cried, gayly, “ There, 
grasshoppers, eat that—you fiddlin’ de¬ 
mons that air so fond of green, stuff!” 

A stooped, flat - breasted woman, but 
with the remnants of beauty still cling¬ 
ing to her thin, pale face, came around 
the corner of the house. She, too, had 
been taking a last look about. A black 
cat alternately trotted in front of her 
and arched its back across her skirts. 

“Bufus, I feel as if we ought to take 
the cat,” said she, hesitatingly. “I hate 
to leave any living thing here” 

“ Throw him in! Always room for one 
more!” cried her husband, jovially. 

She glanced up gratefully at his unex¬ 
pected good-nature, and then took a final, 
solicitous look about her. Just as the 


148 Harper's Novelettes 

prospect of quick wealth had not intoxi¬ 
cated her, as it had her husband, when 
they sold out in Indiana and started 
West, so the reverses they had since suf¬ 
fered had not sullened and hardened her. 
Likewise, though this home-going was 
filling her depleted veins with new life, 
she could not bubble over as Rufus and 
the children did. Instead, she wet her 
pillow with softly flowing, peaceful 
tears, in the stillness of the night. 

“Now I must go over to Willie's 
grave,” said she, quietly. It was plain 
that this duty had been reserved for 
the last. 

She did not ask her husband to go with 
her, and he did not volunteer to go. But 
he watched her with chastened eyes as 
she crossed the field to the slight rise 
which, for want of a better name, they 
had always called “ the hill.” The little 
grave was already covered with a tangle 
of wild roses, trumpet-vine, and prairie- 
grass ; the headboard was gray and 
weather-beaten, and the rudely carved 
name half obliterated. Nature was claim¬ 
ing her own. A few summers and win¬ 
ters would come and go, with their beat¬ 
ing rains and merciless freezes; and then 
there would be nothing, not even a little 
mound, to mark the spot where Willie, 


Back to Indiana 


i49 


after spinning his brief thread of life, 
had been laid away. Scalding tears ran 
down the mother’s cheeks at the thought. 

“ I wish it was so we could take him 
up and lay him with the others, back 
home,” said she, gently, on her return. 

“ We’ll do it sometime, mother,” 
promised Daggett, hopefully. But she 
knew they never would do it; they would 
always be too poor. 

Owing to the hard times, they had 
been unable to sell their farm. So they 
had left it in the hands of a real-estate 
agent, twenty miles away, who would 
probably fleece them out of half their 
dues if he ever sold the place. Their 
scanty furniture had brought but a pit¬ 
tance, and had it not been for a lucky 
sale of cattle they might have been un¬ 
able to get away for another year. As 
it was, they expected to reach Indiana 
with practically nothing but the wagon 
and the span of mules which drew it. 
But what of that! They would be among 
friends; they would be in God’s country 
—in old Indiana, where they had been 
born and raised. 

So, buoyed up by hope, that divinest of 
gifts from above, they were happy. At 
night they camped by the roadside, 
tethered the mules, built a fire, and 


150 Harper's Novelettes 

cooked supper. How sweet the smoky 
bacon, the johnny-cake smutted with 
ashes, and the black, creamless coffee 
tasted! No king ever sat down to more 
royal fare. Then, after a brief season 
of talk, and a pipe for Daggett, they lay 
down and slept in the untainted air of 
God’s great out-of-doors. In the morn¬ 
ing they arose with renewed life, fed the 
mules, cooked breakfast, and began an¬ 
other day’s lap on their long journey. 

Often the road was hot and dusty, 
between flat, barren fields. But often, 
again, it skirted beautiful streams for 
miles; and after they reached the Ozarks, 
it wandered through pleasant valleys, 
forded swift brooks, and climbed cool 
mountain-sides, in the shade of thick 
timber. Farmhouses, villages, and cities 
were sighted, passed, and left behind, in 
a slow, pleasing panorama. Beyond the 
Ozarks they began to see birds that they 
had known back in Indiana; and at sight 
of the first cardinal, with his breast 
flaming in the sunlight, Daggett stared 
with fascinated eyes for a moment, and 
then burst out: “Look at the redbird, 
mother! He’s just like the one that used 
to build in our syringa-hush!” Lucy 
could not remember that he had ever 
called her attention to a bird before. 


Back to Indiana 151 

The black' cat deserted them the first 
night out, going back home, presumably. 
But no ill luck ensued, as Daggett half 
feared it would. Not so much as a nut 
was lost or a strap broken. Mrs. Daggett 
continued to improve; the children, 
though as brown as Malays from dust 
and tan, had no ache or pain; and Dag¬ 
gett himself forgot to take a dyspepsia 
tablet for a week. 

Yet their bed was not quite one of 
roses. Thoughts of the future, even in 
“ God’s country,” occasionally touched 
the parents with anxiety. Also, in some 
places, where their dark coats of tan 
branded them as gipsies, they were look¬ 
ed upon with suspicion. Occasionally a 
village constable, puffed up with authori¬ 
ty, would order them not to camp within 
the village limits; and sometimes a 
farmer, attracted by their evening fire, 
would warn them not to trespass for 
wood. Again, when the unshorn and 
grimy Daggett entered a store to pur¬ 
chase groceries or a bale of hay—oc¬ 
casionally the roadside pasture failed— 
he was now and then made to feel that 
his room was preferred to his trade. Yet 
generally they were treated with hu¬ 
manity; and not infrequently a farmer, 
seeing the children at play of an evening, 


152 Harper's Novelettes 

would bring out milk or eggs or even a 
chicken to the camp. 

Daggett and his wife usually sat 
around the fire of a night, after the chil¬ 
dren had gone to bed, and talked over 
their prospects. Her heart, like his, was 
set on getting back the old place, where 
four of their children had been born 
and two of them buried. It was only a 
poor little place of eighty acres, just be¬ 
yond the fertile belt of Wabash bottom¬ 
land; but it was home, sweet home, and 
looking back to it from their exile they 
forgot its scanty crops and rocky soil. 

“ If we can't get it back, Rufus, it 
won’t be like going home,” said Lucy, 
one night, gazing into the fire with misty 
eyes. They were then in Missouri, in the 
eastern foot-hills of the Ozarks. 

“ We’ll git it back, mother,” said Dag¬ 
gett, confidently. His courage ran high 
these days. “ Joinville Haines probably 
holds it yet, ’cause it ain’t likely any¬ 
body would want to buy it. Leastways, 
they didn’t seem to want to when we had 
it to sell. He’s a good man. He ain’t 
forgot the time I pulled him out of the 
crick and saved his life, when we was 
boys. And I reckon he ain’t forgot, 
either, that he loved you once, Lucy,” 
he added. 


Back to Indiana 


153 


She did not answer at once, but her 
face grew softer. The remnant of its 
girlish beauty, which child - bearing, 
drudgery, and ill health had so sadly 
ravished, showed to better advantage in 
the soft firelight than in the glare of day. 

“ Maybe he has forgotten,” she mur¬ 
mured. “I once feared that he was a 
man who might forget such things.” 

Daggett pushed a log farther into the 
fire with his boot, sending up a shower 
of sparks, and relit his pipe with a coal. 

“ Is that the reason you didn’t marry 
him?” he asked, slyly. 

She lifted her eyes to his. “I loved 
you, Rufus,” said she, quietly, and smiled 
almost as she used to smile in the days 
when he had courted her. 

A tenderness which had long lain dor¬ 
mant stirred in Daggett’s bosom. In the 
past weeks he had realized as never be¬ 
fore the hard life he had led her. He 
had not provided for her as Joinville 
Haines would have done. He had com¬ 
plained of his lot, and he had often been 
cross with her. To marry him she had 
left a home in which, humble though it 
was, she had never known privation. She 
had slaved in his kitchen and about his 
house. She had borne his children, 
cheerfully, and with only welcome in 


154 Harper's Novelettes 

her heart for them as they came along, in 
a rapid succession under which she had 
withered like a flower. She had bravely 
seen three of them lowered in the grave. 
She had met his fault-finding with the 
soft answer which turneth away wrath. 

She had followed him into the West 
against her better judgment. For five 
years she had stood by his side out there, 
ten miles from a neighbor, twenty from 
a town, and forty from a railroad. She 
had cheered him on while he fought 
grasshoppers, hot winds, drought, bliz¬ 
zards, and his own sinking courage. 
Never once had she suggested going back 
to Indiana, though he could see that her 
strength was failing and her heart break¬ 
ing. And when at last he had given up, 
bitter and defeated, she had smoothed 
the wrinkles from his brow, and put 
hope in his heart, and raised the rally- 
cry: “Back to God's country! Back 
to Indiana!” 

“Joinville will let us have the old 
place back,” he repeated. “He ain't got 
any use for it. He knows I'll pay as I 
can, and he’ll give me time.” 

“ It was such a warm little house, there 
in the hollow,” said she, huskily, con¬ 
trasting it with the boxlike shell on the 
prairie, where the northwest gales, tooth- 


Back to Indiana 


i55 


ed with arctic cold, ravened like a wolf 
at every crevice for days at a time. “ The 
kitchen was so cozy, too. I used to com¬ 
plain that it was too small, and un¬ 
handy. But I never will again—if we 
get it back.” 

Daggett’s eyes glistened like a boy’s. 
“ I wonder if the honeysuckle-vine is 
still on the well-house. I ain’t smelt 
honeysuckle since we left there.” 

She smiled at him through sudden 
tears. “ Rufus, I used to think, out on 
the prairie, when I was so tired all the 
time, that I’d be content to die, if only 
the children could be provided for, and 
I knew that some one would put a 
sprig of honeysuckle in my hands after 
I was dead.” 

When he helped her into the wagon, 
where she slept, he retained her hand for 
a moment, in a half-embarrassed way. 
Then he kissed her. He could not recall 
when he had kissed her good-night be¬ 
fore. Nor could she, as she lay with 
wide-open, happy, starry eyes. 

He arose the next morning with a 
heart strangely, blissfully light. Some¬ 
thing was moulding the old topsyturvy, 
sordid world over for him again, giving 
it somewhat the likeness it had borne 
when he was a boy. As he and Roy 


156 Harper's Novelettes 

rode along on the front seat, he said to 
the lad, 

“ Roy, do yon remember the old 
place ?” 

“ Yes,” answered the boy, eagerly. “ I 
remember the crick, with the bridge 
acrost it—and the little grove of spruce- 
trees, with the two tombstones — and 
the old barn with a basement—and a 
well with a chain and a bucket on 
each end.” 

“ And the sweetest water in it, Roy, 
that man ever drunk!” added the father, 
jubilantly. “ I ain’t had my thirst right¬ 
ly quenched since I left it. The first 
thing you and me ’ll do when we drive 
in is to git a drink of that water—and 
then bring a gourdful to mother. Eh!” 
He laughed gayly, and clucked to the 
mules. “ Git ep, boys, git ep! Every 
step is takin’ you nearer to that sweet 
water, and you kin have some too.” 
Once h© would have sullenly struck the 
animals when they lagged. 

At a town called Bonneterre, in Mis¬ 
souri, which they passed through about 
five o’clock in the afternoon, Uncle 
Tom's Cabin was advertised on the bill¬ 
boards for that night. 

“ Mother,” said Daggett, with an in¬ 
spiration, “ I’ve a notion to camp on the 


Back to Indiana 


i57 


aidge of town, and take Roy and Nellie 
to see Uncle Tom. It’s a grand show 
—I seen it once—and they ain’t never 
seen a show in all their lives. It won’t 
cost ranch.” 

The mother made no objection. So 
after supper Daggett and the two chil¬ 
dren set out for the “ Opera-house,” 
leaving Mrs. Daggett, four - year - old 
Bobbie, and Spot, the setter, in charge of 
the camp. It was a memorable night for 
the youngsters; and when Eliza fled 
across the floating ice in the Ohio, with 
her child in her arms, Roy, forgetting 
that it was only a play, leaped to his feet 
and shouted shrilly, “ Oh, paw, them 
hounds are goin’ to git her!” 

But on the way home, in the midst of 
the excited babble of the children, Dag¬ 
gett suddenly paused under a street lamp, 
and looked down at the diminutive pair 
with a sickly color overspreading his 
face. His pocketbook was gone! And 
it contained all the money he had in the 
world, except the change remaining from 
a five-dollar bill which he had broken at 
the box-otflce! 

A search both along the street and in 
the opera-house was of no avail, and it 
was a heavy-hearted man who stretched 
himself that night beneath the prairie- 


158 Harper's Novelettes 

schooner. There was no joking or sky¬ 
larking the next morning as they hitched 
■up the mules—no response to the birds’ 
tuneful sunrise greetings. They were 
still two hundred and fifty miles from 
home; the last of the flour had been used 
for supper, and the side of bacon was 
almost gone. 

The alternative which faced Daggett 
was to work, beg, or steal. His honesty 
was of a fibre which would not permit 
the last, and his rough pride balked at 
the second. Therefore he must work. 
But work was not an easy thing for a 
nomad like him to get; and if he did 
get it, it would take him some time, per¬ 
haps until cold weather, with a family 
and a pair of mules on his hands, to 
accumulate enough to last him through 
to Indiana. The outlook was desperate 
indeed. 

That day their dinner consisted of 
stale bread—a baker had let Daggett 
have three loaves for a nickel—and dan¬ 
delion greens boiled with the last of the 
bacon. Supper consisted of the same, 
warmed over; and little Bobbie went to 
bed crying for something to eat. Dag¬ 
gett swore, with a mighty oath, that the 
child should have it in the morning, cost 
what it might. 


Back to Indiana 


159 


Two days later they crossed the Mis¬ 
sissippi at St. Louis, on the great Eads 
bridge. Daggett and his wife had look¬ 
ed forward impatiently to the passage of 
this last great natural barrier between 
them and home, and the occasion was to 
have been one of thanksgiving. But the 
bridge toll made a cruel hole in the 
rapidly dwindling little store of silver in 
Daggett’s pocket; and though the chil¬ 
dren were jubilant over the steamboats, 
and craned their necks to the last to see 
them, the parents scarcely glanced at 
the Father of Waters. That night Dag¬ 
gett announced to his wife that he had 
just a dollar and twenty cents left. 

“ Something will turn up, husband,” 
said she, bravely, but her lips trembled. 

“ What kin turn up ?” asked he, pa¬ 
thetically, and she could not make 
answer. 

They took the old St. Louis and Vin¬ 
cennes stage-road, running due east. 
Daggett mournfully recalled the exu¬ 
berance with which he had passed over 
it five years before, going west. The 
second day out from St. Louis, while 
watering their team at a public pump, 
in a village whose name they did not 
know nor care to ask, the usual curious 
group gathered about them. 


160 Harpers Novelettes 

'‘Want to sell that bird-dog, mister?” 
inquired a bystander, who had been 
noting Spot’s points with a critical eye. 

Daggett suddenly stopped pumping. 
He had thought of selling his mules and 
buying a pair of bullocks. He had 
thought of selling his wagon and buying 
a cheaper one. He had even thought of 
selling the box of clothing. But until 
this instant his dog, blooded though he 
was, had no more occurred to him as an 
asset than one of his children had. Yet 
why not sell him? Better sell a dog than 
starve a child. With grim lips he stepped 
over to the inquirer, so as to get out of 
ear-shot of the wagon. 

“ I’ll sell him if I kin git his price,” 
said he, almost fiercely. “ But it’s one 
that you wouldn’t care to pay, I reckon, 
without tryin’ him, and this ain’t the 
season for birds.” 

“What is your price?” asked the 
other, as Spot approached his master and 
looked up inquiringly with his soft, 
brown eyes. “He’s got a good head.” 

“ Twenty-five dollars,” answered Dag¬ 
gett, resolutely. 

“You don’t want much!” grinned the 
prospective buyer. 

“ No, not much—for a dog like that,” 
retorted Daggett, 


Back to Indiana 161 

“I like his looks,” admitted the man. 
“ He shows his breedin’ all right. But 
all the evidence I’ve got of his trainin’ is 
your word.” 

“ That’s all the evidence you’ve got or 
kin git,” assented Daggett, coolly. “ And 
it don’t make a picayune’s worth of dif¬ 
ference to me whether you take it or 
leave it.” 

His bluster was working, as he per¬ 
ceived from beneath his drooping lids, 
and the other hesitated. 

“ If you’d asked me five dollars for 
that dog, pardner, I’d have refused him. 
I’d ’a’ knowed he was a spoiled pup.” 
He took another whiff at his pipe. “ I’ve 
been tryin’ for three years to get a dog 
just like that one. He grows on me 
every minute, and—I’ll take him at your 
price,” he ended, abruptly. 

“ Come into this store,” said Daggett, 
in a low voice. The dog followed. “ My 
wife and children mustn’t see you take 
him. They’d squall their eyes out. I’m 
sellin’ him, my friend, because I’ve got 
to—because I need the money. You see! 
Otherwise your common council could¬ 
n’t raise enough to buy him. Tie a 
string around his neck—he’s as gentle 
as a lamb—call him Spot, and, after 
we’re out of sight, lead him home and 


162 


Harper's Novelettes 


feed him. And, my friend, treat him 
good. He's the best bird-dog you ever 
shot over.” 

The man wrote out a check, which the 
grocer cashed. Daggett pocketed the 
money, patted the dog on the head, and 
turned guiltily away from the beseech¬ 
ing brown eyes. 

The children, lying inside the canvas, 
out of the hot sun, did not miss their 
four-footed playfellow until supper-time. 
Then Daggett confessed, and bowed his 
head before the storm of grief that 
burst. It was only after the young 
ones had sobbed themselves to sleep 
that Mrs. Daggett said, sympathetically, 
“ I reckon it hurt you more than it 
did them, Bufus.” 

The next day they had butter on their 
bread again, but it had been purchased 
at too heavy an outlay of the heart's 
coin to be enjoyable; and when little 
Bobbie said with a whimper, “ I'd 
thooner have Spot than butter,” he 
voiced the family’s sentiments. 

But even the sacrifice of their pet 
could not long keep their spirits down, 
now that home was drawing near and 
they had the wherewithal to keep on 
going. The towns they passed through 
were becoming familiar to Daggett, by 


Back to Indiana 163 

name at least, and looked like Indiana 
towns, he fancied. As the wagon 
rumbled across the muddy Little Wa¬ 
bash, with its pond - lilies and willow 
thickets, Daggett cried out, boyishly: 
“ By jings! it’s a picture on a small 
scale of the old ’Bash herself; and I’ll 
bet a cooky that if I had a hook and 
line I could ketch a catfish down there 
in three minutes!” 

But when he crossed the Wabash it¬ 
self, two days later, his emotions were 
too deep for frivolous expression. In 
that stream was water from Beecher’s 
Kun, and Beecher’s Kun crossed his old 
farm! How well he understood the 
silent tears which were coursing down 
Lucy’s cheeks! And, oh, the rustle of 
that bottom-land corn! It came to his 
ears like some forgotten lullaby of child¬ 
hood ; and when a wood - pewee called 
pensively from a sycamore, the man lift¬ 
ed an illuminated face toward the little 
embodied voice and murmured, “ God’s 
country—old Indiana—at last!” 

The prairie-schooner creaked into 
Emerald Grove after dark on a moon¬ 
light night. In their anxiety to reach 
the town they had decided not to halt 
for supper at the usual hour, Daggett 


164 Harper's Novelettes 

promising the children if they would 
wait that they should eat in a restaurant. 
They were now jubilant over this novel 
prospect. But the parents were quiet. 
The realization of their dream was too 
near at hand. Their old home lay but 
three miles away! 

Emerald Grove! It was here that 
Lucy had bought her wedding-gown, and 
here that Daggett had bought his wed¬ 
ding suit. It was here that their childish 
eyes had first grown round with wonder 
at sight of a store, street-lamps, and a 
telephone. It was the promise of a trip 
to this town, on Saturday afternoon, that 
used to hold them faithful to their chores 
all week long. It was here the old doctor 
lived who had ushered them and their 
children into the world. 

The town looked natural; but Daggett 
was surprised, and a little disappointed, 
at the number of new houses which had 
gone up. In his heart he was jealous of 
any change which had taken place in his 
absence. He wanted to come back to the 
Emerald Grove that he had left—a som¬ 
nolent old town whose population had been 
at a standstill for a quarter of a century. 

There were a number of new stores, 
too; and the restaurant to which Dag¬ 
gett took the family for supper had 


Back to Indiana 165 

been improved and enlarged until he 
hardly recognized the place. It had also 
changed hands, so that he was denied the 
pleasure of shaking hands with Elihu 
James, the former proprietor. As he ate 
he watched the door for a familiar face, 
which he was hungrier for than the viands 
on his plate; but he could recall the name 
of none of the men who dropped in for a 
cigar. Emerald Grove had changed! 

After supper they drove around to 
Joinville Haines’s house. At least one 
of the hearts in the wagon fluttered as 
Daggett passed up the flower-bordered, 
brick walk to the old-fashioned dwelling. 
So much depended on Joinville Haines 
and his loyalty to an old friend! Then, 
in an ominously short time, Lucy heard 
her husband coming down the walk 
again. Trouble was in his footfalls. 

“ Joinville don’t live here no more,” 
said he, in a puzzled manner. “ He’s 
gone and built him a new house, the 
woman said. Don’t it beat you that 
he would give the old family home 
the shake?” 

His tone was almost an aggrieved one. 
During the weeks on the road he had so 
often stood, in imagination, on the steps 
of this house, and seen Joinville Haines 
open the door and start at the apparition 



i66 


Harper's Novelettes 


of his old friend. Therefore, a strange 
woman answering his ring had stunned 
him. But this shock was small com¬ 
pared with the one he received when, fol¬ 
lowing the woman’s directions, he drove 
to a plot of ground that used to be rank 
with dog-fennel and jimson - weed and 
found a great, three-storied, granite man¬ 
sion, with plate-glass windows, statuary 
in the yard, and a gravelled driveway 
and porte-cochere, all jealously guarded 
by an aristocratic ten-foot iron fence. 

“This — this can’t be Joinville’s, 
Lucy!” he faltered. 

But it was, so a white-capped maid 
informed him at the massive front door. 
Mr. Haines was not at home, she added, 
and would not be until the following day. 
Would he leave his card? Daggett shook 
his head and retreated in confusion. His 
card! He had never owned a card in his 
life, and the Joinville Haines he used 
to know never had, either. 

“ If we’ve got to camp again to-night, 
Rufus, let’s drive out by the old place,” 
pleaded Lucy, timidly. This great house, 
somehow, had frightened her. “ I feel 
as if I’d sleep better out there. And I 
can’t wait any longer to see it.” 

They were soon on the old familiar 
road, over which Daggett had hauled so 


Back to Indiana 167 

many wagon-loads of corn and hogs and 
apples. They passed the long row of 
Lombardy poplars in front of Newton 
Bryson’s, and crossed first Haymeadow 
Creek and then Possum Fork. From a 
distance they recognized in the moon¬ 
light the thicket of “ silver maples ” that 
had sprung from the roots of the two 
hoary old trees in Si Morgan’s front 
yard. Then came Dick Helm’s, Lucian 
Smith’s, Nimrod Binney’s, and all the 
other old neighbors. No change here, 
and it was not long before the scent of 
new-mown hay, still lying in windrows, 
and the notes of the whippoorwills had 
smoothed away the disappointments and 
alarms of Emerald Grove. 

Finally they rumbled across the little 
bridge over Beecher’s Run—still patched 
with the plank that Daggett had placed 
there with his own hands. From the 
summit of the rise just beyond, their 
old home would lie in full view—the 
house^ the barn, the well-house, and, if 
the onlight were bright enough, the 
clump of spruces under which two little 
white stones stood at the head of two 
little graves. 

Daggett halted the mules at the foot 
of the slope. 

“ Let’s camp here to-night, Lucy,” said 


i68 


Harper's Novelettes 


he, in a voice which sounded strange in 
his own ears. “ We couldn’t see much 
to-night, anyhow. And I’d sooner see 
it first by daylight. It’ll look more 
natural.” 

So they camped there that night— 
camped, but did not sleep. All night 
long the woman lay in the wagon, lis¬ 
tening to the frogs, and looking at the 
stars in the west — that west out of 
which they had fled as the children of 
Israel fled out of Egypt. And all night 
long the man under the wagon, out of 
the dew, lay with open eyes; and he too 
looked at the stars. 

For some reason—the natural reaction 
following his high-strung anticipations, 
or the changes in Emerald Grove—he 
was uneasy. And though the little frogs 
trilled and the crickets chirped just as 
they always used to do, something seem¬ 
ed to be amiss with the old nocturnal 
quietude of the place. All through the 
night there came to him, he ^' I, a 
low, distant, regular, mys' md 

which he was at a loss to ex n 

he rose to his elbow and . it 

seemed to cease; and he finally persuaded 
himself that it was only a ringing in 
his ears from indigestion. He had eaten 
a pretty hearty supper. 


Back to Indiana 


169 


The elders were up at the gray of 
dawn, while the children still slept; but 
it was not until the sun had fairly risen 
that they proceeded slowly up the little 
rise of ground. Lucy reached out and 
took her husband’s hand. He felt her 
trembling; and there flashed before him 
a day in their childhood when both of 

them, barefooted, had tramped up this 
selfsame little hill. She was trembling 

then, too, for she had seen a snake in the 
blackberry bushes. 

They reached the top of the rise, and 
lifted their eyes. Both suddenly grew 
rigid. Then Lucy gave a little cry. 
Daggett stared vacantly ahead. 

There was no farm! There was no 
cottage — no barn — no vine - clad well- 
house ! All had been swept from the face 
of the earth as if by the besom of destruc¬ 
tion. In their plaee were long, low, ugly 
brick buildings, with tin roofs; great 
tanks; tall towers of structural steel; a 
huge brick chimney, from which jetty 
smoke rolled forth; several rows of new¬ 
ly painted laborers’ quarters; a railroad 
track and cars. 

“ Oil!” broke out Daggett, hoarsely, 
at last. “ They’ve struck oil!” 

Lucy, swaying dizzily, grasped his arm 
for support. 


170 Harper's Novelettes 

“Where’s the little graveyard?” she 
whispered. 

“I — I can’t jest make out, I’m so 
turned around,” he answered. 

But he was not turned around to that 
extent. He had seen at the first glance 
that the ugly boiler-house, with the 
smoky cloud clustering about its tall 
stack like some foul fungus, squatted 
squarely over the little God’s-acre in 
which the dust of their dead ones lay. It 
gave him a feeling of suffocation. 

As they stood in stunned silence, a 
carriage drawn by two spirited black 
horses, whose buckles glittered in the 
sunlight, rapidly approached. On the 
rear seat, behind a liveried coachman, sat 
Joinville Haines—a millionaire, but up 
and at work while most of his hired men 
still slept in the quarters below. In 
spite of his great house in Emerald 
Grove, and in spite of his fine equipage, 
he had changed little. He wore the same 
plain, ill-fitting clothes he had always 
worn, and beneath his squarely trimmed 
beard his shirt-front showed innocent 
of any cravat. He was only a little old¬ 
er, a little sadder, with deeper lines about 
his mouth. 

At sight of the wayfarers, who, in 
their crushed mood, would have let him 


Back to Indiana 


171 

pass unhailed, he ordered the driver 
to stop. 

“How do, Rufus! How do, Lucy!” 
said he, with his old quiet cordiality. 
He stepped down and held out his hand 
to each, after a characteristic motion 
which reminded Lucy of the days when 
he used to run a meat-market and al¬ 
ways wiped his hand on his apron before 
offering it to any one. “ When’d you 
git back?” 

“Last night,” answered Daggett. “We 
camped yander. We just come up to see 
the old place.” 

“ Hadn’t you heard ?” 

Daggett shook his head. A peculiar 
light, akin to pity, flamed up in the rich 
man’s eyes, and then died away. 

“ You find consid’able change, then.” 

“ Joinville, we wanted to buy the old 
place back!” cried Lucy, swiftly. 

Again that peculiar light in his eyes. 

“ Well, I guess you don’t want it 
now, after I’ve sp’iled it for you. You 
wouldn’t, leastways, if you’d had as much 
trouble with it as I have.” He jerked 
his head toward his liveried coachman. 
“ My wife makes me ride behind that 
monkey in red top-boots,” he added, in a 
lowered voice. “ But, Rufus, if you want 
a farm, I’ve got a hundred acres two 


172 Harper’s Novelettes 

miles down the road—the old Bamum 
place. It’s better land than this ever 
was, and you can have it on easy terms.” 

“ How much down ?” asked Daggett, 
with a harsh laugh. He seemed to be 
joking, in a ghastly way. 

“ Whatever you can pay,” answered 
the millionaire, steadily. 

Daggett drew a couple of silver dol¬ 
lars and some small change from his 
trousers pocket. 

“ There’s my pile. Join—what’s left of 
my bird-dog.” 

Haines studied the coins in the horny 
palm for a moment. 

“You have a penny there. Pay me 
that down.” He did not smile, but 
gravely accepted the copper, wrote out a 
receipt for it, and signed a name that 
was good for at least a million dollars. 
“ You can take possession this morning 
—there’s no one on the place. I’ll drop 
in this afternoon, and we’ll inventory 
the stock and machinery.” 

The man and the woman stood side by 
side, without speech, until the carriage 
had passed out of sight. 

“ He didn't forget,” said Daggett, with 
glistening eyes. 

Lucy’s lips parted, but closed again, 
soundlessly. 


The Gray Chieftain 

feY CHARLES A. EASTMAN, M.D. 

O N the westernmost verge of the 
Cedar Butte stood Haykinskah 
and his mate. They looked stead¬ 
ily toward the setting sun, over a land¬ 
scape which up to that time had scarce¬ 
ly been viewed by man—the inner circle 
of the Bad Lands. 

Cedar Butte guards the southeastern 
entrance of that wonderland, standing 
fully a thousand feet above the surround¬ 
ing country, and nearly half a mile long 
by a quarter of a mile wide. The summit 
is a level, grassy plain, its edges heavily 
fringed with venerable cedars. To at¬ 
tempt the ascent of this butte is like 
trying to scale the walls of Babylon, for 
its sides are high and all but inaccessi¬ 
ble. Near the top there are hanging 
lands or terraces and innumerable pre¬ 
cipitous points, with here and there deep 


174 


Harper's Novelettes 


chimneys or abysses in the solid rock. 
There are many hidden recesses, and 
more than one secret entrance to this 
ancient castle of the Gray Chieftain 
and his ancestors, but to assail it suc¬ 
cessfully required more than common 
skill and spirit. 

Many a coyote had gone up as high 
as the second leaping bridge, and there 
abandoned the attempt. Old Grizzly had 
once br twice begun the ascent with doubt 
and misgiving, but soon discovered his 
mistake, and made clumsy haste to de¬ 
scend before he should tumble into an 
abyss from which no one ever returns. 
Only Igmutanka, the mountain-lion, had 
achieved the summit, and at every ascent 
he had been well repaid; yet even he 
seldom chose to risk such a climb, when 
there were many fine hunting-grounds in 
safer neighborhoods. 

So it was that Cedar Butte had been 
the peaceful home of the Big Spoon- 
horns for untold ages. To be sure, some 
of the younger and more adventurous 
members of the clan would depart from 
time to time to found new families, but 
the wiser and more conservative were con¬ 
tent to remain in their stronghold. There 
stood the two patriarchs, looking down 
complacently upon the herds of buffalo. 


The Gray Chieftain 175 

antelope, and elks that peopled the lower 
plains. While the red sun hovered over 
the western hills, a coyote upon a near-by 
eminence gave his accustomed call to 
his mate. This served as a signal to all 
the wild hunters of the plains to set up 
their inharmonious evening serenade, to 
which the herbivorous kindred paid but 
little attention. The phlegmatic Spoon- 
horn pair listened to it all with a fine 
air of indifference, like that of one who 
sits upon his own balcony, superior to the 
passing noises of the street. 

It was a charming moonlight night 
upon the cedar-fringed plain, and there 
the old chief presently joined the others 
in feast and play. His mate sought out 
a secret resting-place. She followed the 
next gulch, which was a perfect laby¬ 
rinth of caves and pockets, and after 
leaping two chasms she reached her fa¬ 
vorite spot. Here the gulch made a 
square turn, affording a fine view of the 
country through a windowlike opening. 
Above and below this were perpendicular 
walls, and at the bottom a small cavity 
—the washout made by a root of a pine 
which had long since fallen. To this led 
a narrow terrace—so narrow that man or 
beast would stop and hesitate long be¬ 
fore making the venture. The place was 


176 Harper's Novelettes 


her own by right of daring and discovery, 
and the mother’s instinct had brought her 
here to-night. 

In a little while relief came, and the 
ewe stood over a new-born lamb, licking 
tenderly the damp, silky coat of hair, 
and trimming the little hoofs of their 
cartilaginous points. The world was 
quiet now, and those whose business it 
was to hunt or feed at night must do so 
in silence, for such is the law of the 
plains. The wearied mother slept in 
peace. 

The sun was well above the butte when 
she awoke, although it was cool and 
shadowy still in her concealed abode. She 
gave suck to the lamb, and caressed it 
for some time before she reluctantly pre¬ 
pared its cradle according to the custom 
of her people. She made a little pocket 
in the floor of the cave and gently put 
the baby in. Then she covered him all 
up, save the nose and eyes, with dry soil. 
She put her nose to his little sensitive 
ear and breathed into it warm love and 
caution, and he felt and understood that 
he must keep his eyes closed and breathe 
gently, lest bear or wolf or man should 
catch his big eyes or hear his breathing 
if they should find her trail. Again she 
put her warm, loving nose to his eyes. 


The Gray Chieftain 


177 


she patted a little more earth on his body 
and smoothed it off. The tachinchana 
closed his eyes in obedience, and she left 
him for the plain above, in search of 
food and sunlight. 

At a little before dawn two wild hunters 
left their camp and set out for the Cedar 
Butte. Their movements were marked 
by unusual care and secrecy. Presently 
they hid their ponies in a deep ravine 
and groped their way up through the 
difficult Bad Lands, now and then paus¬ 
ing to listen. The two were close friends 
and rival hunters of their tribe. 

“ I think, friend, you have mistaken 
the haunts of the Spoonhorn,” remarked 
Grayfoot, as the pair came out upon one 
of the lower terraces. He said this 
rather to test his friend, for it was their 
habit thus to criticise and question one 
another’s judgment, in order to extract 
from each other fresh observations. 
What the one did not know about the 
habits of the animals they hunted in 
common, the other could usually supply. 

“ This is his home. I know it,” re¬ 
plied Wahye. “And in this thing the 
animals are much like ourselves. They 
will not leave an old haunt unless forced 
to do so, either by lack of food or 
overwhelming danger.” 


178 Harper's Novelettes 

They had already passed on to the 
next terrace and leaped a deep chasm to 
gain the opposite side of the butte, when 
Grayfoot suddenly whispered, “ Inajin!” 
(Stop!). Both men listened attentively. 
“ Tap, tap, tap,” an almost metallic 
sound came to them from around the 
perpendicular wall of rock. 

“ He is chipping his horns,” exclaimed 
the hunter, overjoyed to surprise the 
chieftain at this his secret occupation. 
“ Poor beast! they are now too long for 
him, so that he cannot reach the short 
grass to feed. Some of them die starv¬ 
ing, when they have not the strength 
to do the hard bucking against the rock 
to shorten their horns. He chooses this 
time, when he thinks no one will hear 
him, and he even leaves his own clan 
when it is necessary for him to do this. 
Come, let us crawl upon him unawares!” 

They proceeded cautiously and with 
catlike steps around the next projection, 
and stood upon a narrow strip of slant¬ 
ing terrace. At short intervals the pound¬ 
ing noise continued, but, strain their 
eyes as they might, they could see noth¬ 
ing. Yet they knew that a few paces 
from them, in the darkness, the old 
chief was painfully driving his massive 
horns against the solid rock. So they lay 


i 79 


The Gray Chieftain 

flat, upon the ground under a dead cedar, 
whose trunk and the color of the scanty 
soil resembled their clothing, and on their 
heads they had stuck some bunches of 
sage-bush, to conceal them from the eyes 
of the Spoonhorn. 

With the first gray of the approaching 
dawn the two hunters looked eagerly 
about them. There, in all his majesty, 
heightened by the wild grandeur of his 
surroundings, stood the Gray Chieftain 
of the Cedar Butte! He had no thought 
of being observed at that hour. Entirely 
unsuspicious of danger, he stood alone 
upon a pedestal-like terrace, from which 
vantage-point it was his wont to survey 
the surrounding country every morning. 
If the secret must be told, he had done 
so for years, ever since he became the 
head chief of the Cedar Butte clan. 

It is the custom of their tribe that 
when a ram attains the age of five years 
he is entitled to a clan of his own. He 
must thereafter defend his right and su¬ 
premacy against all comers. His expe¬ 
rience and knowledge are the guide of 
his clan. In view of all this, the Gray 
Chieftain had been very thorough in 
his observations. There was not an ob¬ 
ject anywhere near the shape of bear, 
wolf, or man for miles around his king- 


180 Harper's Novelettes 

dom upon Hanta Pahah that was not 
noted, as well as the relative positions of 
rocks and conspicuous trees. 

The best time for Haykinskah to make 
his daily observations is at sunrise and 
sunset, when the air is usually clear and 
objects appear distinct. Between these 
times the clan feed and settle down to 
chew their cud and sleep; yet some are 
always on the alert to catch a passing 
stranger within their field of observation. 
But the old chief Spoonhorn pays very 
little attention. He may be nestled in a 
gulch just big enough to hold him, either 
sound asleep or leisurely chewing his 
cud. The younger members of the clan 
take their position upon the upper ter¬ 
races of the great and almost inaccessible 
butte, under the shade of its projecting 
rocks, after a whole night’s feasting and 
play upon the plain. 

As Spoonhorn stood motionless, look¬ 
ing away off toward the distant hills, 
the plain below appeared from this ele¬ 
vated point very smooth and sheetlike, 
and every moving object a mere speck. 
His form and color were not very differ¬ 
ent from the dirty gray rocks and clay 
of the butte. 

Wahye broke the silence: “I know of 
no animal that stands so long without 


The Gray Chieftain 181 

movement, unless it is the turtle. I think 
he is the largest ram I have ever seen.” 

“ I am sure he did not chip where he 
stands now,” remarked Grayfoot. “ This 
chipping - place is a monastery to the 
priests of the Spoonhorn tribe. It is 
their medicine-man’s lodge. I have more 
than once approached the spot, but could 
never find the secret entrance.” 

“ Shall I shoot him now ?” whispered 
his partner in the chase. 

“ No, do not do it. He is a real chief. 
He looks mysterious and noble. Let us 
learn to know him better. Besides, if we 
kill him we will never see him again. 
Look; he will fall to that deep gulch ten 
trees’ length below, where no one can 
get at him.” 

As Grayfoot spoke, the animal shifted 
his position, facing them squarely. The 
two men closed their eyes and wrinkled 
their motionless faces into the semblance 
of two lifeless mummies. The old sage 
of the mountains was apparently de¬ 
ceived; but after a few moments he got 
down from his lofty position and disap¬ 
peared around a point of rock. 

“ I never care to shoot an animal while 
he is giving me a chance to know his 
ways,” explained Grayfoot. u We have 
plenty of buffalo meat. We are not hun- 


182 Harper's Novelettes 


gry. All we want is spoons. We can get 
one or two sheep by and by, if we have 
more wit than they.” 

To this speech Wahye agreed, for his 
curiosity was now fully aroused by Gray- 
foot’s view, although he had never before 
thought of it in that way. It had always 
been the desire for meat that had chiefly 
moved him in the matter of the hunt. 

Having readjusted their sage wigs, the 
hunters made the circuit of the abyss 
that divided them from the ram, and 
as they looked for his trail, they noticed 
the tracks of a large ewe leading down 
toward the inaccessible gulches. 

“ Ah! she has some secret down there. 
She never leaves her clan like this, un¬ 
less it is to steal away for a personal 
affair of her own.” 

So saying, Grayfoot and his fellow 
tracked the ewe’s footprint along the 
verge of a deep gulch with much trouble 
and patience. The hunter’s curiosity 
and a strong desire to know her secret 
impelled the former to lead the way. 

“ What will be our profit if one slips 
and goes down into the gulch, never to 
be seen again?” remarked Wahye, as 
they approached a leaping - place. The 
chasm below was of a great depth and 
dark. “ It is not wise for us to follow 


The Gray Chieftain 183 

farther; this ewe has no horns that can 
be made into spoons.” 

“ Come, friend, it is when one is 
doubting that mishaps are apt to occur,” 
urged his companion. 

“Koda, heyu yo!” exclaimed Wahye 
the next moment in distress. 

“ Hehehe, koda! hold fast!” cried the 
other. 

Wahye’s moccasined foot had slipped 
on the narrow trail, and in the twinkling 
of an eye he had almost gone down a 
precipice of a hundred feet; but by a des¬ 
perate launch forward he caught the 
bough of an overhanging cedar and swung 
by his hands over the abyss. 

Quickly Grayfoot pulled both their 
bows from the quivers. He first tied 
himself to the trunk of the cedar with his 
packing-strap, which always hung from 
his belt. Then he held both the bows 
toward his friend, who, not without diffi¬ 
culty, changed his hold from the cedar 
bough to the bows. After a short but de¬ 
termined effort the two men stood side 
by side once more upon the narrow foot¬ 
hold of the terrace. Without a word they 
followed the ewe’s track to the cave. 

Here she had lain last night! Both 
men began to search for other marks, 
but they found not so much as a sign 


184 Harpers Novelettes 

of scratching anywhere. They exam¬ 
ined the ground closely, but without suc¬ 
cess. All at once a faint “ ba-a-a ” came 
from almost under their feet. They saw 
a puff of smokelike dust as the little 
creature called for its mother. It had felt 
the footsteps of the hunters, and mis¬ 
taken them for those of its own folk. 

Wahye hastily dug into the place with 
his hands and found the soil loose. Soon 
he uncovered the little lamb. “ Ba-a-a,” 
it cried again, and quick as a flash 
the ewe appeared, stamping the ground 
in wrath. 

Wahye seized an arrow and fitted it 
to the string, but his companion checked 
him. “ No, no, my friend. It is not the 
skin or meat that we are looking for. 
We want horn for ladles and spoons. 
The mother is right. We must let her 
babe alone.” 

The wild hunters silently retreated, 
and the ewe ran swiftly to the spot and 
took her lamb away. 

“ So it is,” said Grayfoot, after a long 
silence, “ all the tribes of earth have 
some common feeling. I believe they are 
people as much as we are. The Great 
Mystery has made them what they are. 
Although they do not speak our tongue, 
we seem to understand their thought. 


The Gray Chieftain 185 

It is not right to take the life of any 
of them unless necessity compels us to 
do so. 

“ You know,” he continued, “ the ewe 
conceals her lamb in this way until she 
has trained it to escape from its enemies 
by leaping up or down from terrace to 
terrace. I have seen her teaching the 
yearlings and two-year-olds to dive down 
the face of a cliff which was fully twice 
the height of a man. They strike on the 
head and the two forefeet. The ram 
falls largely upon his horns, which are 
curved in such a way as to protect them 
from injury. The body rebounds slight¬ 
ly, and they get upon their feet as easily 
as if they had struck a pillow. At first 
the yearlings hesitate and almost lose 
their balance, but the mother makes them 
repeat the performance until they have 
accomplished it to her satisfaction. 

“ They are then trained to leap chasms 
on all fours, and finally the upward jump, 
which is a more difficult feat. If the 
height is not great they can clear it neat¬ 
ly, but if it is too high for that, they 
will catch the rocky ledge with their fore¬ 
feet and pull themselves up like a man. 

“ In assisting their young to gain 
upper terraces they show much ingenuity. 

I once saw them make a ladder of their 
13 


i86 


Harper's Novelettes 


bodies. The biggest ram stood braced 
against the steep wall as high as his body 
could reach, head placed between his fore¬ 
feet, while the next biggest one rode his 
hind parts, and so on until the little ones 
could walk upon their broad backs to the 
top. We know that all animals make 
their young ones practise such feats as 
are necessary to their safety and advan¬ 
tage, and thus it is that these people 
are so well fitted to their peculiar mode 
of life. 

“How often we are outwitted by the 
animals we hunt! The Great Mystery 
gives them this chance to save their lives 
by eluding the hunter, when they have 
no weapons of defence. The ewe has seen 
us, and she has doubtless warned all the 
clan of danger.” 

But there was one that she did not see! 
When the old chief left his clan to go 
to the secret place for chipping his horns, 
the place where many a past monarch of 
the Bad Lands has performed that pain¬ 
ful operation, he did not intend to re¬ 
join them immediately. It was custom¬ 
ary with him at that time to seek 
solitude and sleep. 

The two hunters found and carefully 
examined the tracks of the fleeing clan. 
The old ram was not among them. As 


The Gray Chieftain 187 

they followed the trail along the terrace 
they came to a leaping-place which did 
not appear to be generally used. Gray- 
foot stopped and kneeled down to scruti¬ 
nize the ground below. “ Ho!” he ex¬ 
claimed, “ the old chief has gone down 
this trail, but has not returned. He is 
lying down near his chipping-place, if 
there is no other outlet from there.” 

Both leaped to the next terrace below, 
and followed the secret pass into a rocky 
amphitheatre, opening out from the ter¬ 
race upon which they had first seen the 
old ram. Here he lay asleep. 

Wahye pulled an arrow from his 
quiver. 

“Yes,” said his friend, “shoot now! 

The old chief awoke to behold the most 
dreaded hunter—man—upon the very 
threshold of his sanctuary! Wildly he 
sprang upward to gain the top of the 
cliff. But Wahye was expert and quick 
in the use of his weapon. He had sent 
into his side a shaft that was deadly. 
The monarch’s forehoofs caught the 
edge—he struggled bravely for a moment, 
then fell limply to the floor below. 

“ He is dead. My friend, the noblest 
of chiefs is dead!” exclaimed Grayfoot 
as he stood over him, in great admiration 
and respect for the Gray Chieftain. 


The Inn of San Jacinto 

BY ZOE DANA UNDERHILL 

OIJ ask me if I believe in ghosts. Of 



course I do. I believe in them be- 


* cause I have felt one. It was in a 
ruin, too, the correct place for ghosts; 
but not exactly in the right kind of ruin, 
for there was nothing imposing or weird 
about it; it was a dusty, tumble-down 
adobe shanty in New Mexico. 

Do you remember Harry Felters— 
what great promise he gave as a young 
artist, and how he never came to any¬ 
thing? He and I were great chums at 
the Art School, and afterwards we fell 
into the way of going on sketching tours 
together. He was a nice fellow, quick¬ 
tempered, but very good-natured too, and 
it would have been hard to find a jollier 
companion. I was delighted one autumn 
when he proposed we should make a little 
"Western excursion together; he wanted 
to get some of the atmospheric effects on 
the high plains. We started in Septem¬ 
ber, bought ourselves a couple of broncos 



The Inn of San Jadnto 189 

when we reached the country we wanted, 
and started off on the trail which ran 
near the railroad. We had splendid 
weather, took all the time we wanted, and 
got a lot of first-rate things; but Felters 
was looking forward all the time to stop¬ 
ping at a little Mexican village—San 
Jacinto, the name was—which lay some 
distance off the main trail, hut which he 
had heard was the rarest place. A friend 
of his had been there a couple of years 
before, but had only been able to stay a 
day or so. He reported a tolerable inn, 
and we planned to stop for several weeks, 
making excursions into the surrounding 
country, and getting what we were 
particularly anxious for—some character 
sketches of the natives. We had the 
pleasantest anticipations of our time 
there. 

The day before we expected to reach 
San Jacinto we struck off on to a side 
trail across the hills. We learned after¬ 
wards that there was more danger in un¬ 
dertaking this lonely journey than we 
had any idea of at the time, but we came 
to no harm. We slept out that night, 
and late the next afternoon we came in 
sight of the village, perched half-way up 
a long, sloping mesa. We reached it as 
the sun was setting. There was but a 


190 Harper's Novelettes 

single street running between low adobe 
huts, but, to our surprise, this street was 
thronged with Mexicans and Indians 
in holiday costumes—fierce, agile-looking 
fellows in thumping hats, and slim girls 
with mantillas over their heads. 

We mustered our slender stock of 
Spanish, and inquired of the first group 
we met the reason of the crowd. We 
found some local fair was in progress, 
and it was not only the inhabitants of 
San Jacinto we beheld, but of all the set¬ 
tlements for fifty miles around. Harry, 
in the seventh heaven of delight, was 
gaping at all the wrinkled old men and 
dark-eyed girls, in their picturesque ar¬ 
ray, but I was hungry, and not willing to 
waste time on the picturesque just then, 
so I hauled him along, protesting and 
turning round all the time, towards what 
had been pointed out to us as the inn we 
were in search of. It stood quite at the 
other end of the street, and looked bigger 
and more imposing than the rest of the 
houses, being newly painted a fine brick- 
color. 

“ Here we are at last, and a good thing 
too,” said I, as the owner of the house 
came bustling out to receive us. He hur¬ 
ried us into a long, crowded room, and 
set a couple of cooling drinks before us 


The Inn of San Jacinto 191 

in enormous glasses before we had time 
to speak, chattering all the time with 
great civility. But as soon as we be¬ 
gan to talk of rooms he sang a different 
tune. 

“Ah, seiiores,” he cried, in a despair¬ 
ing tone, “ that is an impossibility, quite 
an impossibility. Every inch of room in 
the house is taken—is crowded, I may 
say. As soon as they are done drinking 
and singing we put mattresses down on 
the floor of the eating-room here; and I 
will try my best to find a corner for a 
mattress for the two noble gentlemen. 
Mattresses in plenty I have, but no space 
to spread them, unfortunately.” 

“ Well, well,” broke in Harry, “ it 
isn’t mattresses we want. It’s a room to 
ourselves to sleep in. Surely we can find 
something at some of the neighbors’. We 
won’t grumble if it’s a little one.” 

But the landlord shook his head. “ No, 
no,” he reiterated; “ there isn’t an empty 
space anywhere in the village big enough 
to hold a canary-bird. Every house is 
full.” 

“ But you must have some little corner 
or cupboard you could put us in. Your 
own room, for instance. If we pay you 
well, couldn’t you move out of that for a 
night or two, just till this fair is over?” 


192 Harper's Novelettes 

The man shrugged his shoulders. “ I 
haven’t slept in my own room for three 
nights. Seven women have it,” he said. 
u I take one of the benches down here.” 

“ Very well,” cried Harry, who was 
getting out of temper; “ then we will 
simply go on without stopping. We meant 
to spend several weeks here, but of course 
if you haven’t accommodations—” And 
he turned and picked up his saddle¬ 
bags from the bench where he had flung 
them. 

“ Oh, come, now, Harry,” said I, “ we 
don’t want to leave the moment we get 
here. For a few nights we can certainly 
stand it, and then it will quiet down 
again.” 

“ Yes, yes,” cried the landlord, evident¬ 
ly much impressed to hear of the long 
stay we had intended, and anxious to 
detain us if promises would do it; “ oh 
yes, yes! By the end of the week the fair 
is over, and then you can have splendid 
rooms—as many rooms as you like.” 

But as you know, Harry was always a 
pig-headed fellow. He buckled his bags 
tight. 

“ No,” said he; “ I’m not going to sleep 
in any such mess as this. If we can’t 
have rooms to ourselves, we go on to¬ 
night. That’s all about it.” 


The Inn of San Jacinto 193 

The landlord wrung his hands. “ Ah,” 
he cried, “ what a shame! what a shame! 
To have the gentlemen leave my house!” 
Then I saw a sly gleam come into his 
©ye. “ Ah,” he cried, “ I have it! I have 
it! If the gentlemen would only be sat¬ 
isfied. Do you mind, perhaps, if you 
sleep in a very old room? Oh, very, very 
old!” 

“No, no!” we interposed, in a breath. 

“ But it is very old,” he went on, look¬ 
ing at us narrowly, “ and there is but the 
one room for the two.” 

“ That is nothing,” we cried. “ We 
won’t mind that in the least, as long as 
we don’t have to sleep on the floor with 
strangers.” 

“ And even there,” he went on, “ I 
fear you would have to occupy the same 
bed; there is but one bedstead in the 
room. To be sure,” he said, reflectively, 
“ one of you might have a mattress on 
the floor even there, but it would be very 
cold, I fear. The floor is of stone, and 
the dampness—” 

“ Oh, never mind,” we interrupted; 
“ for three or four nights it won’t matter, 
as long as we can have the room to 
ourselves.” 

“ Certainly, certainly,” he reiterated, 
“ to yourselves. I should not think of 


194 Harper's Novelettes 

putting any one else in the room of the 
two noble gentlemen. Sit down, sit 
down, and make yourselves easy. I will 
send my niece to make ready for you. 
You must not expect too much, gentle¬ 
men. It is in the old part of the house 
that has gone to ruin a good deal; that 
is why I never thought of it before. But 
this one room is strongly built. It is 
safe enough; you need have no fear of 
roof or walls. But it is dusty; I must 
have it swept.” And so talking on, half 
to himself and half to us, he filled our 
glasses again, and got himself out of the 
room. Presently we heard his voice 
outside calling, “Julita! Julita!” and 
then a long and rather vehement whis¬ 
pered conversation was carried on not 
far from the window. 

It was an hour or more, and we had 
finished our supper, before he returned to 
show us to our apartment. We found it 
was in a deserted building whose presence 
we had not even suspected from the front 
of the house. It lay far to the back and 
one side, and was, our host told us, the 
old original inn, which had been built by 
his great-uncle several times removed, 
and had fallen too much out of repair to 
use. But the room to which he led us was 
still in tolerable preservation, a queer old 


The Inn of San Jacinto 195 

place, with walls and floor of rough stone, 
and lighted by a small grated window 
high up at one side. They had set in a 
few odd pieces of furniture for us, and a 
big four-post bedstead, which looked as 
old as the room, was piled high with an 
enormous feather-bed. For the bedstead 
our host apologized profusely. Not to be 
able to furnish us at least with separate 
sleeping accommodations weighed heavi¬ 
ly on his spirits. But what could he do? 
It was to be regarded as good-fortune 
that the old bedstead had not long since 
been brought into the house and given to 
earlier comers. Its age and weight were 
the sole reasons it was still at our dis¬ 
posal. For the feather-bed he did not 
think it necessary to apologize, though 
that was certainly what seemed most for¬ 
midable to us. However, we were pleased 
enough to get anything to ourselves, and 
told him so. 

We went back to the big hall, and sat 
there awhile smoking and watching the 
queer collection of humanity it held, but 
we were both tired with our ride, and 
presently asked the landlord for our can¬ 
dles. He brought them, one for each, 
and each with a little box of Swedish 
matches beside it on the candlestick. 
But he was a long time lighting them. 


196 Harpers Novelettes 

snuffed them out once or twice, and final¬ 
ly said, with a curious air of gravity for 
so slight a speech: 

“ The gentlemen see that our candles 
are not easy to light. Might I beg of 
them to leave the night-light burning in 
their chamber ?” 

“Night-light?’’ cried Harry, brusquely. 
“ Oh no, we don’t want a night-light. 
There is nothing the matter with those 
candles. It’s only the clumsy way you 
snuffed them.” And with the word he 
drew a match from his pocket, lit it 
quickly, and in a moment had the candle 
burning clearly. 

The landlord looked perturbed. “ See! 
see!” he cried. “Once the candle may 
light quickly, and another time it may 
not. The little light will not disturb you. 
I beg the gentlemen will leave it burn¬ 
ing. There will be no extra charge— 
none whatever.” And he looked at us 
anxiously. 

“ Oh, nonsense!” said Harry, turning 
away with his candle. 

But the landlord mu3t have thought 
I was of a more accommodating disposi¬ 
tion, for now he caught me by the coat 
sleeve. “ I beg, I beg,” he repeated; and, 
tired of his persistence, I answered, care¬ 
lessly, “ Oh, all right; I won’t put it out,” 


The Inn of San Jacinto 197 

and left before he had time to say any¬ 
thing more. 

But we were not yet free from impor¬ 
tunities about our lights, for as we passed 
the kitchen his fat old wife, who super¬ 
intended the cooking for her husband’s 
guests, waddled towards us. 

“ Candles! candles!” she panted. “ Oh, 
they’re no good. You’ll blow them out 
before you think twice. But look out 
not to disturb the little night-light Julita 
set up in the niche. That ’ll give you 
light enough to see by all night.” 

“ Good Lord! what do we want to see 
for? The night’s made for sleeping,” 
cried Harry, roughly, and dragged me 
through the kitchen like a whirlwind, 
while behind us we still heard the wheez¬ 
ing voice of the old woman discours¬ 
ing on the insufficiency of candles and 
the superior advantages of Julita’s oil- 
taper. 

We had not done with the advocates of 
the night-light even yet. As we made 
our way through the dusty passage, 
stumbling over the broken slabs of stone 
which formed its floor, we encountered 
Julita herself, pale and trembling, and 
regarding with anxious fear the lantern 
which she held in her hand. She jumped 
aside with a scream when she caught 


198 Harper’s Novelettes 

sight of us, then laid her hand on her 
heart with a look of relief. 

“ Oh, blessed saints, it is the gentle¬ 
men !” she exclaimed. “ I have just been 
to look after the light in your room my¬ 
self.” She spoke as one conscious of 
having bestowed an inestimable favor. 
“ It is burning brightly. The little oil- 
lamp is high up in the niche of the wall; 
nothing can overturn it. The oil is of 
the best. It will burn all night—” 

“ Oh, come!” cried Harry, who by this 
time had entirely lost his temper. “ Who 
wants your infernal lamp! For Heav¬ 
en’s sake, let us have a little peace and 
darkness.” 

“Ah, no, no!” cried the girl, recoiling 
as if he had struck her—“not darkness! 
The gracious gentleman did not think of 
what he was saying. Oh, sir,” laying 
her hand on my arm as Harry pushed 
angrily past her, “you surely would not 
put out the light? You will surely let it 
burn all night ?” and she looked at me as 
desperately as if she were imploring me 
not to cut my throat. Her eyes were full 
of tears. I felt sorry for such distress, 
even while I was annoyed by these con¬ 
tinuous appeals from a singularly light- 
loving populace, and answered, hastily: 

“ Oh, certainly, certainly, my good 


The Inn of San Jacinto 199 

girl.” Slipping past her, I contrived to 
get into the room and shut the door be¬ 
fore she could speak again. 

Harry came up and locked it. 

“ Confound them!” he said; “ what is 
the matter with them all? We have 
matches, I hope. Why should they take 
such a particularly fervent interest in our 
lamp?” and he laid his match-box on the 
chair at the head of the ponderous bed¬ 
stead, beside the candle which he had just 
extinguished. 

Then he reached up and blew out the 
little flame in the niche above our heads. 

“ There!” said he; “I hope that’s done 
with for to-night, anyway.” 

“ Oh, Harry,” I remonstrated, “ I told 
the girl I wouldn’t put it out.” 

"Well, you haven’t, have you?” he re¬ 
joined, roughly. " How you’d better not 
talk any more of that intolerable non¬ 
sense, or I shall get into a temper. Put 
out your own light when you’re ready to 
go to sleep, and that’s the end of it. I’m 
tired to death.” 

It wasn’t five minutes before he had 
tumbled into the wide bed, nor five more 
before he was asleep. I felt wakeful, and 
made my preparations in a more leisurely 
way, but presently I too stretched out 
my weary limbs on the soft feathers. 


200 


Harpers Novelettes 

The little window with its iron bars stood 
diagonally across from the foot of the 
bed, and as I blew out my candle and 
sank back on the pillow my eyes fell on 
the dim gray square. I seemed to see 
some vague black form pass between me 
and it. My heart gave a sudden throb, 
and I started to raise myself; but before 
I had done so I felt in the darkness some¬ 
thing fly at my throat. My hands went 
up instinctively, and grasped the thick 
cold fingers which were clutching me so 
tightly that it was impossible to breathe. 
The terror of death fell upon me, and 
with all my strength I tore at the invisi¬ 
ble hands which were squeezing my life 
out, but I could no more move them than 
I could have moved the solid rock. I 
was powerless to make a sound. I set 
my head and shoulders against the bulk 
which pressed upon me and tried to push 
it back, but vainly, though in my agony 
I writhed and twisted like a snake. I felt 
that I was growing faint, my head rang, 
and my senses were faltering, when in 
my convulsive movements my foot touch¬ 
ed Harry’s warm and sleeping body. I 
gathered myself together, and struck out 
with all the strength I had left. I felt 
him roll over, and then that he was sit¬ 
ting up in bed. It was like heaven to 


201 


The Inn of San Jacinto 

know that he was beside me and roused, 
but even then I thought to myself there 
was little chance of his coming to my 
rescue in time. 

Harry called to me once or twice, and 
then I felt his hand laid on my heaving 
shoulder. The next moment I heard him 
jump out of bed, and it seemed not a 
second before the flare of a candle lit up 
the room. The pressure was gone from 
my throat. I drew in the air again and 
yet again, but was still too exhausted and 
bewildered to know anything but that the 
struggle was over, and I was once more 
drawing the blessed breath of life. 

“ Good gracious! What’s the matter 
with you ?” I heard Harry say; but I only 
moaned. 

“Here, wake up!” he cried, and shook 
me by the shoulder. I lifted myself on 
one elbow, and looked around with a 
shudder. There was nothing in sight but 
Harry, who was looking at me sharply. 
I put my hand to my throat; it was 
bruised and sore to the touch. 

“ Oh, Harry,” I panted, “ something 
awful has happened!” 

“ Something awful!” he repeated. 
“You’ve had an awful nightmare, that’s 
what’s the matter—and you aren’t awake 
yet, either. Shake yourself together, man, 

14 


202 


Harpers Novelettes 


can’t you? You look as if you’d seen a 
ghost. I declare your eyes are all blood¬ 
shot. Oh, nonsense!” as I slipped back 
on the pillow, with a sigh. “ Come, brace 
up, and have a little style about you.” 

“ Oh, Harry,” I reiterated, “ there has 
been something awful. It’s no night¬ 
mare. I wasn’t asleep. The minute the 
light was out some one—something— 
came at my throat. In another moment 
I should have been strangled, if you 
hadn’t waked.” 

“ Why, I didn’t do anything, except 
jump out of bed when you kicked me. 
You needn’t thank me for anything more 
than waking you up—and that isn’t half 
done yet.” 

“ Oh, I’m awake enough!” I cried. 

“ Well, then,” said he, “ that’s all there 
is to be said about it. “ We’ll blow out 
the light and try our hand at sleeping 
again,” and as he spoke he bent over the 
candle to extinguish it; but I caught him 
and pulled him away quickly. 

“No, no!” I shouted, filled with un¬ 
controllable terror; “let it bum. Light 
the little night-lamp, won’t you? I’ve 
had such a scare I’m afraid to be left in 
the dark.” 

“ All right,” he answered, with a 
laugh; “we’ll keep the promise to Julita 


The Inn of San Jacinto 203 

the rest of the night, anyway. I suppose 
it was your uneasy conscience wouldn’t 
let you rest.” 

In a few moments more he was again 
sound asleep beside me, but my fears 
were not so easily quieted. A hundred 
imaginary noises made me start up to 
peer into the distant comers of the room, 
or look up at the black square of the win¬ 
dow; and at every little quiver of the 
tiny flame burning in the niche my heart 
jumped. I lay awake till the dawn came 
in at the grated casement, and then fell 
asleep, utterly worn out. 

Harry was moving about the room, 
humming a song, when I woke. The 
bright sun was shining through the bars 
of the window. I felt ashamed of myself, 
and when he caught my eye he broke into 
a roar of laughter. 

“ Well, I say,” he shouted, “ I hope 
you’ve managed to pluck up a little spirit 
this morning. I never saw a man scared 
so blue in my life. For Heaven’s sake, 
tell us what you were dreaming about. 
A whole menagerie, I should say. How’s 
your neck this morning?” And he went 
off into a fresh peal of laughter. 

“ Well, laugh if you like,” said I; “ it 
was awful. I can’t imagine how I came 
to get into such a state. Good Heavens! 


204 


Harper's Novelettes 


I can’t bear to think of it even now.” I 
paused a moment, for as the memory of 
the night’s grisly phantom came back 
clearly, an intolerable shiver of fear went 
through me. “ Besides,” I went on, “ my 
neck is all sore still. I believe you can 
see the bruises.” 

“By Jove!” he said, coming up and 
looking at me closely. “By Jove!” he 
repeated, touching my throat gingerly 
with the tips of his fingers. “ That’s the 
most curious thing I ever saw! You’re 
all black and blue! How did you do 
it?” 

“ That’s more than I know,” said I, 
“unless the thing that came at me last 
night did it.” And then I told him every 
detail of my curious experience of the 
night. As I told it my own faith in its 
reality grew, and I could see that he was 
impressed with the same feeling; but 
when I came to the end he shook himself, 
seemed to gather his routed forces, and 
gave an incredulous laugh again. 

“ Well,” he said, looking down at me 
from his great height—“ well, that cer¬ 
tainly is a queer story. And you think 
all that could go on with me asleep right 
beside you and me not know it? Eh? 
Oh, nonsense! You had a nightmare, of 
course, and that’s what made you kick 


The Inn of San Jacinto 205 

out so. My shins are as black and blue 
as your neck.” 

“Yes, and what made my neck black 
and blue ?” I broke in. “ Do you suppose 
you had the nightmare too, and were try¬ 
ing to twist it?” 

“No, no! Of course not,” said be. 
“ You must have twisted your own fin¬ 
gers around it in your sleep somehow. 
That isn’t so unlikely as that a phantom 
tried to throttle you.” And he gave anew 
a boisterous laugh. 

There was no use in arguing with him; 
and besides, I had no tenable ground for 
argument. I could not bring myself to 
believe in his explanation; but still less 
could I, in the full light of reason and 
glare of day, believe in the unseen foe 
who had made the darkness of night so 
horrible. With an effort I succeeded in 
dismissing the whole thing from my 
mind, and dressed to join Harry in the 
sketching excursions which we had 
planned the day before. Julita was in 
the passage as we went through to break¬ 
fast. She did not seem busy about any¬ 
thing, and by her attitude I judged she 
had been watching our door. At any 
rate, as we opened it her face was pale 
and troubled, but a moment later broke 
into smiles as she saw us both emerge 


206 Harper's Novelettes 

from the room. The landlord, too, greet¬ 
ed us with fervor, and served us an excel¬ 
lent breakfast, which his fat wife came 
in to watch us eat. Indeed, every one 
about the inn seemed to take an interest 
in us, and gathered in the doorways to 
look at us. This we attributed to the 
fact that we were, in a way, foreigners; 
and they were all so good-natured about 
it, breaking out into smiles and expres¬ 
sions of satisfaction whenever we looked 
their way, that we did not mind. 

We had a successful day of it, gather¬ 
ing in a collection of queer and pictu¬ 
resque figures, and didn’t get back till 
dark. I had felt strangely tired all day, 
and was glad to yield to Harry’s sugges¬ 
tion that we should go early to bed. He 
stuck his sketches all around, and gloated 
over them in the dim illumination of the 
candles; but I was overcome with sleep, 
and tumbled into bed as quickly as I 
could. 

“ I’ll get on the other side, Harry,” I 
said, “ if you aren’t ready to come yet.” 

“ All right, old man,” said he, walking 
back and forth before his pictures. “ I’m 
not ready yet. I hope this light won’t 
keep you awake.” 

“ On the contrary,” said I, “ I much 
prefer it. I can’t forget my bad dreams 


The Inn of San Jacinto 207 

so quickly. Do leave the little night- 
light burning, Harry, like a good fellow.” 

“ All right,” he answered; and in a 
moment I was asleep. 

I don’t know how long afterwards it 
was that I was awakened abruptly by be¬ 
ing pushed almost out of bed. I was so 
sound asleep that I could not collect my 
thoughts all at once, and lay for a mo¬ 
ment trying to rouse myself, when the 
blow was violently repeated, and then I 
became aware that Harry was writhing 
and beating his arms about at my side. 
In a sudden spasm of terror I sprang out 
of bed, ran round to the other side where 
the matches were, and struck the whole 
bunch as I gathered them in my hand. 
They flared up, and shivering with fright, 
I moved to the bedside. There lay Har¬ 
ry, his eyes staring wide with horror, and 
drawing occasionally a long moaning 
breath. I knew well enough what it was, 
and wasted no time on questions, but 
hurried to light the candle before the 
matches should go out. Then, for safety, 
I also reached up and kindled the little 
taper, which Harry had evidently ex¬ 
tinguished, as the oil in the glass was 
scarcely consumed. Afterwards I turned 
back to Harry, drew the covers away to 
give him air, carried the light to the foot 


208 


Harper’s Novelettes 


of the bed, where his eyes could rest 
upon it, and draw from it the reassurance 
that 1 knew nothing else could give, and 
softly chafed his nerveless hands. Pres¬ 
ently I had the satisfaction of seeing the 
wild and wandering look die out of his 
face and a certain composure return to it. 
He was evidently getting possession of 
his faculties. 

“ Well, Harry,” I said, when I saw 
this, “ I suppose you have had the night¬ 
mare ?” 

A sickly smile drew up the corners of 
his mouth. 

“ Confound you,” he murmured, “ I 
was just thinking that was the first thing 
you would say, and now you’ve said it! 
Good Heavens!” he cried, in a louder 
tone, raising himself in bed and peering 
around the room, “ I can’t believe the 
hideous thing is gone. Are you sure it 
isn’t in one of the corners yet? I tell 
you I had a narrow squeak for my life. 
I wouldn’t care to come so near death 
again in a hurry. If that last kick hadn’t 
routed you out I knew I should never 
have strength enough for another. Oh, 
what terror!” The wild look came back 
as he talked; he raised his hand and felt 
of his throat, which, from where I stood, 
I could see was red and swollen. 


The Inn of San Jacinto 209 

“It is hideous,” said I. “You surely 
must know now it was no nightmare.” 
He nodded, and gave again a quick, 
frightened look about. I went on: 

“ It—it is something that only comes 
in the dark. It cannot be a real thing, 
for it is gone with the first ray of light. 
It is real enough to strangle a man, 
though. Heavens, Harry, suppose either 
of us had slept here alone!” We both 
shuddered. 

After a little while Harry quieted 
down, but there was very little sleep for 
either of us that night. We lighted 
everything within reach. I had a trav¬ 
elling lamp with me, and Harry hauled 
out of his bag one of those little pocket- 
lanterns that his sister had packed in just 
as he was leaving home. He said he 
laughed at her when she did it, but we 
were glad enough to see it now. We 
dozed and woke at intervals, always re¬ 
assured to see our improvised illumina¬ 
tion when we unclosed our eyes. Every¬ 
thing was still as the grave, and except 
for our excited nerves we might have 
rested in peace the whole night through. 
When daylight came we both gave a 
sigh of relief, and turning over, fell into 
a sleep so heavy that we never stirred 


210 


Harper's Novelettes 

until we were wakened by a tremendous 
thumping at the door. 

“ For the love of God,” we heard the 
landlord’s voice shouting outside, “ an¬ 
swer me, gentlemen! Answer me! Are 
you well ? Are you safe ? Speak, gentle¬ 
men ! Answer me!” 

Between his rough tones we heard 
sighs and ejaculations, the low talking of 
men, and the rustling of petticoats. 

“ Why, we’re all right,” I called back, 
and then came a chorus of congratula¬ 
tions and thanksgiving to all the saints 
from behind the door. Evidently there 
had been a little crowd in the hall, for 
we could hear them dispersing. 

We talked the matter over as we were 
dressing. To tell the truth, I was thor¬ 
oughly frightened, and felt sick of the 
whole business. I couldn’t understand 
it, and the more I thought of it the more 
I disliked it. I didn’t attempt to conceal 
my feelings, either. I said outright that 
I was scared and wanted to get away, 
and proposed to Harry that as soon as we 
had had our breakfast we should saddle 
our horses and ride off on the trail. From 
the stories we had heard since we reach¬ 
ed the village I understood better than I 
had done what risk there was in such a 
lonely ride, but I would a great deal 


211 


The Inn of San Jacinto 

rather be killed by a red man in the day¬ 
light than by a monster in the dark, and 
I said so. But Harry took quite a differ¬ 
ent view of the matter. The effect of 
choking on his disposition seemed to be 
the reverse of depression, and he talked 
in a vindictive way of our invisible as¬ 
sailant. 

“ No, you don’t!” he said, when I tried 
to persuade him to leave. “ Not much I 
go till I know what is the matter here. 
You couldn’t drag me away with wild 
horses till I’ve had another wrestle with 
that thing!” 

“ Mercy, Harry!” said I; “ I don’t see 
why you want another; one would have 
finished you quite if I hadn’t been there 
to help you. Look at your throat now; 
it’s purple and red; you’ll have to tie a 
handkerchief or something round it to 
make yourself presentable. Whatever 
that awful thing was, it was stronger 
than you or I. What can you want to 
meet it again for? Prudence is the bet¬ 
ter part of valor, and I propose to quit 
this horrible spot before I am an hour 
older.” 

“ You’ll quit it alone, then,” he said, 
sulkily, “for I’m not going with you. 
I’m going to stay and see it out.” 

I reasoned and expostulated with him, 


212 Harper's Novelettes 

but all to no purpose. He was as obsti¬ 
nate as a mule. I could not face the pos¬ 
sible Indians by myself, and still less 
could I leave him to confront alone the 
dangers which I believed threatened him 
if he remained. I told him that if he 
stayed, I did, and then we laid our plans. 
Harry had no theory at all to account 
for our strange experience; he simply 
said he would not go away until he had 
fathomed it. Whatever the risks blight 
be, he wished, while wide-awake and in 
full possession of his faculties, to put out 
the light, and encounter the attack of our 
midnight enemy. 

Through the previous day we had 
scarcely spoken of my adventure of the 
first night, having by tacit agreement al¬ 
luded to it as a nightmare. Now, after 
what Harry had gone through, this ex¬ 
planation was no longer tenable. Still, 
we decided it would be better to say noth¬ 
ing of it to any one outside. When we 
issued from our room we found ourselves 
again the centre of interest for all the 
frequenters of the inn. Those who did 
not come forward to speak to us peeked 
at us from behind corners. A continu¬ 
ous procession passed through the room 
where we took breakfast, all on the alert 
for our every movement. The landlord 


The Inn of San Jacinto 213 

apologized by saying we were strangers, 
and every one was naturally struck by 
our elegant appearance, and also that, 
owing to our habit of late rising, the sim¬ 
ple people of the town had become some¬ 
what anxious lest it might be an illness 
or oth.er untoward occurrence which had 
kept us in our room so long. I imagined 
that he either knew something of our ad¬ 
venture or suspected it, from the sharp¬ 
ness with which he looked at us. But we 
gave him no satisfaction, simply assured 
him that we were in the habit of sleeping 
late, that we were charmed to inspire in¬ 
terest in the bosoms of the appreciative 
inhabitants of San Jacinto, and should 
always endeavor to live up to the reputa¬ 
tion for elegance which he so kindly im¬ 
puted to us. 

We sketched all day. When night 
came and we retreated to our room, it wa3 
with the intention of thoroughly investi¬ 
gating the mystery. We had already 
taken occasion to inspect the outside of 
the building in the daytime. The room 
in which we slept was part of an old 
adobe structure, so far gone to ruin that 
this was the only portion in good preser¬ 
vation. The walls of this one room, how¬ 
ever, were perfectly solid. Nowhere was 
there a flaw in them. There could be no 


214 


Harper's Novelettes 


possible entrance from the outside except 
by the door and small grated window in 
the hall. 

When we locked our door for the night 
we placed some percussion-caps in such 
a way that they must explode if it were 
opened even a crack. Then we turned 
our attention to the inside of the cham¬ 
ber. We peered into every crack and 
cranny of the wall, which offered plenty 
of opportunity for such investigation. 
But in spite of its rough and irregular 
surface it was absolutely sound; the 
stones were heavy and well joined; there 
was not an aperture anywhere big enough 
for a man to get his fingers through, 
much less his whole body. The roof was 
perfectly tight. Then we turned our at¬ 
tention to the window, and examined that 
with special care; for I found that with 
Harry, as with me, the first premonition 
of approaching danger had been the pass¬ 
ing of some indistinct dark body across 
its misty square. But here as elsewhere 
it was evidently impossible that any sub¬ 
stantial form should have found en¬ 
trance. The sides of the aperture were 
thick and strong, and the whole opening 
crossed by three iron bars as big as my 
thumb, let into the solid stone, and 
clamped down so securely that there could 


The Inn of San Jacinto 215 

be no chance of their ever having moved 
since they were put in. The intervals 
between them were scarcely two inches 
across. 

We went all over the floor. It was 
made of rough stones set in the firm 
earth. Nowhere did it give a hollow 
sound, and its condition showed the sur¬ 
face could not have been disturbed for 
untold years. We took everything off the 
bed, and looked beneath it. We moved 
the two or three small pieces of furniture 
which had been set into the room since 
our arrival. Finally, absolutely satisfied 
that there was no avenue by which any 
human being could enter the apartment, 
we made our preparations for the night. 
Each set a chair at the head of the bed 
just within reach of his own hand, and 
on it a candle and a plentiful supply of 
matches. Our revolvers we laid, Harry 
under his pillow, and I on the chair be¬ 
side me. As we calculated, the enemy 
could attack but one of us at a time, and 
as the other would be on the watch, it 
should be easy to overpower him from 
behind. 

We lay down, fully dressed, on either 
side of the bed, and I blew out my can¬ 
dle. 

“ Are you all ready ?” said Harry. 


216 Harper's Novelettes 

I cast a quick glance about the room, 
and said: 

“ Yes, ready.” 

He extinguished the remaining light. 
For a moment there was perfect silence. 
Then across the window we both saw, or 
rather felt than saw, through the dark¬ 
ness, a vague shape pass. Harry touched 
me with his elbow; the next second I felt 
my throat clutched in a grasp so fierce 
that all hope of freeing myself from it 
died within me. My one thought was 
that as the creature had attacked me, 
Harry would be able to rescue me, and as 
the clutch tightened I was filled with a 
blind fury at his delay. It was just then 
that a frantic plunge at my side made 
me aware that Harry, like myself, was 
fighting silently and wildly; his arms 
struck me as he hit out, and his kicks 
were as furious as his blows. I raised 
my hand again to tear, however vainly, 
at the thick fingers closed around my 
throat. There was but one hand there, 
and as my senses swam for want of breath 
I realized that the creature must be hold¬ 
ing Harry and me both, one in each hand. 
In my struggle I had moved so far across 
the bed that I could not reach the 
matches. Yet I knew that there lay our 
only chance for life, and with a sudden 


The Inn of San Jacinto 217 

convulsive effort I managed, not to shake 
off the clutch, but in spite of it to press 
so far to one side that I felt my hand 
touch the edge of the chair. It gave mo 
new strength to know myself so near to 
light and life, and with a second strug¬ 
gle I laid my hand upon the matches, 
raised and struck them against the side 
of the bed. I had never known such hap¬ 
piness before—I never shall again—a3 
shot through my heart when my blurred 
eyes saw the first flicker of the tiny blue 
flame. The next instant, as the yellow 
blaze flared up, the awful constriction 
was gone from my windpipe. For a 
second I lay still, unable to do more than 
draw a faint and painful breath, then 
terror lest the tiny sticks should burn 
out and leave me in darkness nerved my 
fainting will. I put out my other hand, 
gathered more matches, kindled them at 
the first, and holding the bunch like a 
tiny torch, I leaned over and lighted the 
candle. Exhausted by the effort, I fell 
back fainting on the pillow. 

When I came to, the candle was burn¬ 
ing brightly. I opened my eyes with a 
sigh to drink in the luxury of the light, 
then closed them again in utter weari¬ 
ness, and lay without a thought, content¬ 
ed in the blissful consciousness that I 
is 


2l8 


Harper's Novelettes 


was alive and safe. I must have remained 
so for some time, when there suddenly 
went through my half-torpid brain a 
memory of Harry. I had not felt him 
move, and the thought alarmed me so 
that I sat up in bed, as if roused by an 
electric shock, and bent over him. His 
eyes were staring wide, but he lay mo¬ 
tionless, and made no response when I 
called him by name. I laid my hand on 
his forehead. It was warm. So was his 
hand, though it dropped nervelessly from 
mine when I left hold of it. I fancied I 
could detect a faint breath drawn at long 
intervals, and a slight, but very slight, 
pulsation of the heart. There was evi¬ 
dently not a moment to be lost. I jumped 
from the bed, though I found I was so 
bruised and sore with struggling that 
every movement brought sharp pain. I 
ran to the door, and in spite of the un¬ 
reasoning horror which attacked me of 
letting in the darkness, I flung it open 
and shouted with all my might for help. 
A few seconds of such clamor and I 
heard answering voices; a moment more, 
and it seemed as if people by the hun¬ 
dred, all bearing lamps, candles, lanterns, 
began to stream along the corridor. They 
flocked into the room, and it scarcely 
needed my few hasty words to set them to 


The Inn of San Jacinto 219 

work with Harry. Almost before I had 
spoken they had him stripped, and three 
or four active Mexicans were rubbing 
and kneading him like so many furies. 
The women flew for hot water and 
brandy. In a few moments a long shud¬ 
dering sigh told that his vital forces were 
returning, and in a little more I had what 
was to me the ineffable satisfaction of 
seeing his eyelids close, and shut out the 
look of horror which had seemed stamped 
upon the eyeballs beneath them. 

Of course we moved Harry out of that 
room immediately, but it took weeks of 
the most careful nursing before he could 
leave San Jacinto. During all that time, 
as you may well believe, I spent every 
moment I could spare from him in trying 
to fathom the causes of our horrible ex¬ 
perience. But the more I searched the 
more inexplicable the whole affair be¬ 
came. At first I very naturally suspect¬ 
ed that it was part of some scheme for 
robbery or murder on the part of the peo¬ 
ple of the inn, but I soon became con¬ 
vinced that they were perfectly innocent. 
There was no mistaking the sincerity of 
their concern for what had happened, nor 
the simple friendliness with which they 
helped to care for Harry. They were 
coarse and superstitious people, but not 


220 Harper’s Novelettes 

criminal, and not unkindly. I detected, 
however, a certain shade of self-reproach, 
if not remorse, in their manner, and when 
I had probed this to the bottom I had 
found the only explanation for the whole 
affair which I ever reached. It was so 
utterly unreasonable that I can only give 
it to you and leave you to make what you 
can of it. 

When we carried Harry to the miser¬ 
able little adobe hut at the other end of 
the street, which was hastily abandoned 
for his use, I heard an uproar behind us 
in the direction of the inn, to which at 
the time I paid no attention. And dur¬ 
ing that afternoon, in the intervals be¬ 
tween Harry’s repeated fainting attacks, 
I heard shouts, mixed with hollow crash¬ 
ing sounds, for which I did not even try 
to account. But when in the course of a 
few days I permitted myself a short walk, 
I strolled in the direction of the inn, and 
there found that the ruinous structure in 
which we had lodged had been tom down. 
The big stones lay scattered in every di¬ 
rection, but not one remained on top of 
another. I asked the landlord what it 
meant. 

“ Ah, senor,” said he, “ it was the peo¬ 
ple that did it. They would not let the 
old building stand another hour. And 


221 


The Inn of San Jacinto 

perhaps they were right, though the loss 
is mine. I am happier myself now that 
it is down. Who knows? Some time in 
the future I might have been tempted 
again by greed to let some luckless trav¬ 
eller have that room. The senor knows 
our people are very superstitious, and 
make more of such things than those in 
the great world. I wished to be wiser 
than my neighbors—the saints pardon 
me! When the traveller was found dead 
there fifteen years ago I made sure he 
had died of some sudden illness; and as 
for the two who died there in my father’s 
time, and the others before that, I forced 
myself to disbelieve in them. But the 
senor’s story of what happened the other 
night has taught me better. The place 
was accursed. It is well that it has been 
destroyed.” 

I asked him what he meant by calling 
it accursed, and he told me a long story 
of the old house, in which we had occu¬ 
pied the only habitable chamber. The 
building was over a hundred years old, 
and had been occupied for many years 
as an inn, whose visitors were the Indians 
and Mexicans at their seasons of festival, 
and such few travellers as made their 
way into that distant region. Some sev¬ 
enty-five years before it had been in the 


222 Harper's Novelettes 

possession of a man of enormous strength 
and evil disposition, under whose rule 
the place gained a bad reputation exact¬ 
ly in proportion as the landlord increased 
in wealth. Two or three travellers who 
were known to have money about them 
were never seen again after entering the 
doors; the landlord maintained that each 
of them had continued his journey the 
next day, starting before dawn, and there 
was no one to gainsay him. Others were 
found dead in bed with black marks on 
their throats, but beyond these there was 
nothing to throw suspicion on any one 
person, and the terror with which the 
brutal innkeeper inspired his neighbors 
was sufficient to crush out inquiry. At 
last, however, the landlord was caught 
in the act. An American engineer, car¬ 
rying a large sum of money, had passed 
through the town, and taken shelter at 
the inn for the night. He made no se¬ 
cret of the money about him, perhaps 
because, being a very large and strong man 
and well armed, he had entire confidence 
in his ability to keep his own. But that 
night some wretched gringos, who were 
sleeping on the floor of the kitchen, 
heard a shout for help. Too timid to 
answer the call themselves, they ran for 
aid, and presently, with the assistance 


The Inn of San Jacinto 223 

of half a dozen others, burst in the door 
of the man’s room. They found the man 
dead, and the landlord kneeling on the 
bed, with his knotted fingers still twist¬ 
ed round the throat of his victim. Be¬ 
fore he could stir, while he was still 
blinking at the sudden light from the 
broken door, he was shot dead by another 
American, a miserable tramp, half gam¬ 
bler and half drunkard, who had joined 
in breaking open the door. The avenger, 
much lauded by the populace, had gone 
on his way the same day. The two bodies 
had been buried side by side outside the 
town. There was now no question as to 
the cause of the previous deaths and dis¬ 
appearances. 

But the room in which such ghastly 
crimes had been committed had ever 
since been regarded with horror by the 
natives. According to their belief, the 
man who died in the commission of such 
a deed became an evil spirit, condemned 
to exist in darkness, and to repeat for¬ 
ever the awful crime in which his last 
moments had been spent. For years the 
chamber stood unoccupied; but when, 
after the lapse of a long time, stress of 
company made it necessary to use it, a 
strange confirmation of their faith was 
given to the superstitious. 


224 


Harper's Novelettes 

The solitary occupant, who had retired 
the night before apparently in good 
health, was found dead in bed the next 
morning. There were not wanting those 
who affirmed that on his throat were the 
purple marks which testified to the pres¬ 
ence of the midnight strangler. However 
that may have been, within the next 
thirty years three more deaths occurred 
in the same mysterious manner, and at 
the time of the last so great was the 
popular horror that not only was the 
room itself condemned as “ accursed,” 
but the whole building, now very ruinous, 
was abandoned, and a new one erected 
nearer the street. It was many years 
since the old room had been occupied 
when we took possession of it, and the 
temptation to the landlord to keep be¬ 
neath his roof the two Americans, who 
to his eyes were simply mines of future 
wealth, had proved too strong to be over¬ 
come. He had salved his conscience by 
arguing that the tales about the room 
were a parcel of foolish superstitions not 
worthy the notice of any man of the 
world, and, in addition, that we were safe 
at any rate, since the evil spirit, if it still 
haunted those walls, could attack only in 
the darkness, while we were not only pro¬ 
vided with abundant means of illumina- 


The Inn of San Jacinto 225 

tion, but had had clearly impressed upon 
us the importance of using them. 

And now you know what has really 
been the matter with Harry Felters. He 
has never fully recovered since that night. 
It took me a year or two to get over the 
shock, but he never did. Whether there 
was some actual physical injury done to 
him, or whether the fright made too deep 
an impression on his nerves ever to be 
effaced, I cannot tell you. But from 
that time to this he has remained ailing 
and good for nothing, though most of 
the time he is reasonable and composed. 
He is subject, though, to occasional vio¬ 
lent attacks of terror. But these come on 
him only in the dark, and if you have 
ever spent any time with him you will 
remember with what elaborate precau¬ 
tions he surrounds himself against be¬ 
ing left even for a moment without light. 
He is a wreck. 


Tio Juan 


BY MAURICE KINGSLEY 


00R little human, he ain’t no 



bigger nor a flittermouse! Let 


A him in here, you long-legged, 
sleek-hided Pedro, you! Come here, son¬ 
ny. What ails ye ?” And Diamond 
Brand Bill, alias Bill, alias William Ir¬ 
win, whilom King of the Mexico-Texan 
border, “ uncoiled ” part of his length 
from the monte game, and motioning 
aside the others, beckoned up to his knee 
—where it stood, a little unclad brown 
figure—a boy of scarce ten years old. 

There was nothing strange in such an 
apparition at the famous monte deal at 
Ojo Caliente just after the big “ round¬ 
up ” of the Encinillas Valley. General 
Terazas, owner of the valley, and ex-Gov- 
ernor of the state of Chihuahua, had or¬ 
dered the u round-up,” and to it came all 
the wild characters of the border. The 
Apaches were pretty bad at the time, but 
what did that matter? 



227 


Tio Juan 

“ We’re a short time living, and a long 
time dead,” as Bill sagely remarked; and 
consequently under the western branches 
of the willows that fringed the clear 
stream welling out from the hill-side— 
the only water for miles round—sat or 
lounged a miscellaneous throng. 

The monte table was only a sarape 
spread on the arid yellow dust of the 
sand waste—not very inviting; but the 
fame of the Terazas “ round-up ” had 
gone forth far and wide, and at it might 
be seen many a well-known Southwestern 
face. Even Denver had sent down Gen¬ 
tleman Jim, a poor cousin, and decidedly 
lower type, of our old friend “ Mr. John 
Oakhurst.” 

El Paso was represented by a would- 
be-respectable Jew; but whose diamond- 
studded fingers had been a leetle—just a 
leetle—too well known in Leadville the 
year before. 

Erom Chihuahua came a young gen¬ 
tleman got up in all the gorgeous para¬ 
phernalia of Mexican ranchero dress—a 
black jacket laden down with silver 
buckles and clasps; an equally magnifi¬ 
cent pair of trousers, so tight-fitting at 
knee, calf, and ankle that they seemed to 
have “ growed on him when he was 
young.” These topped by a sombrero 


228 


Harper’s Novelettes 


bedight and begirt with gold braid, gold 
lace, and gold fringe. However, these 
gems of the gambling nobility were few 
and far between; almost all were Mexi¬ 
can and border vaqueros in native pictu¬ 
resqueness of buckskins and heavy goat 
or jaguar skin overalls, sitting cross- 
legged and saturnine, whose only motion 
was to fling aside the enveloping sarape 
and “ rake down ” or “ put up ” “ onzas,” 
five-dollar bills, or little piles of silver 
dollars clean and bright from the Chi¬ 
huahua mint. Outside of the calls of 
the game—“ Bey en la Puerta!” “ Copo 
al siete!” etc., etc.—hardly a word was 
uttered. The great game of the meet¬ 
ing had just been lost and won, and 
even Bill was thankful for a change, 
when he espied the strange figure across 
the sarape. 

All, possibly, in the front row had no¬ 
ticed the face, but no attention was paid 
to it till Bill’s exclamation, and across 
the sarape glided the little brown figure, 
clad only in an old sheepskin tied round 
the neck, which, after resting a trembling 
hand on his knee, looked first into his 
kindly face, and then glared hollow-eyed 
round the circle as might some wild 
animal. 

Not till then was any real interest 


Tio Juan 


229 


aroused, and a chorus of “Who is he?” 
“What is it?” “Where does he come 
from ?” broke out in tones betokening 
more a sense of coming danger than of 
surprise. 

“What is it, sonny?” again asked Bill, 
patting the matted black-brown head. 

“ Tio Juan,” whispered the child. “ He 
is dead! The Brujo came and stampeded 
the sheep and goats, and I hid—and—and 
—and—” sobbed the child. 

“The Brujo! Who the devil’s he? 
And how did Tio Juan die, you poor lit¬ 
tle starved sinner? Here you, Pedro, 
there, get some water and a tortilla. The 
child’s ’most dead of drought, and his little 
drum’s that 1 cinched up ’ it hain’t had no 
more in it nor a cayote these three days, 
I’ll bet! Why, gosh dern my buckskins 
if the child hain’t fainted!” 

As Bill took the body in his arms and 
strode through the crowd to the adobe 
ranch, twenty-five yards away, in search 
of some of the “wimmin folk,” many 
were the conjectures hazarded as to what 
had happened. The child was a stranger, 
evidently half dead of hunger and 
thirst; but whence or where? Who was 
Tio Juan, and how he had died, no one 
could imagine, till some one said, “ Los 
Apaches.” 


230 Harpers Novelettes 

The Apaches! The words were hardly 
spoken when every hand felt for its ac¬ 
customed weapon, and a hasty look was 
given round the evening horizon of long 
dead plain northward, followed by a gen¬ 
eral movement towards the horses in or 
tied outside the corral; while those whose 
tamer mounts were trying to pick up a 
scant living in the sage-brush started on 
a run to bring them in. 

“ Los Apaches! Los Apaches!” ran 
from mouth to mouth, and not a man 
among them but remembered some per¬ 
sonal encounter, or sad tales of the long¬ 
haired devils swooping down on to a 
friend’s ranch and away again, to leave 
behind nor trace nor sign save a scene too 
revoltingly brutal to tell. And few pres¬ 
ent but cursed the “ round-up,” and its 
subsequent three days’ gamble and de¬ 
bauch, at the thought of wives and chil¬ 
dren on many a lone ranch of northern 
Chihuahua that might be pasturing the 
little flock of goats and brown-woolled 
sheep this evening, or—? 

“ Vamonos! Let us go! To the ranch¬ 
es !” was the cry. “ Hold on! Hold on! 
Who said it was the Apaches? Let’s see 
Bill! Let’s see the child first! Per¬ 
haps it is only a scare!” And they 
crowded into the ranch to find the poor 


23 1 


Tio Juan 

child lying at the end of the room, while 
the Big Bill—Bill, that terror of men— 
was bathing its head as tenderly as the 
Mexican woman in whose lap it lay 
moaning. 

Not till near morning could the little 
thing give its story, and then only in 
disjointed fragments; but with such ef¬ 
fect that at sunup fifty well-armed men 
were mounted and away under Diamond 
Brand Bill to avenge the murder of Tio 
Juan. 

Of all the dreary lives that God in His 
wisdom has allotted to mortals, dull and 
unchanging from day to day, on the 
dreariest wastes of this continent the 
worst by far is that of the Mexican sheep- 
herder, whether on the American or 
Spanish side of the border, from southern 
Colorado to Zacatecas. To such a life 
had Tio Juan been born; in such he had 
existed (one can hardly say “ lived ”) for 
sixty years, pasturing his master’s herd 
of long-legged black, white, and mottled 
sheep and many-colored goats, oblivious 
of all save his herd. A human pariah 
by force of circumstances, not from 
other cause; making his little camp 
of brush where grass was earliest in 
spring, and moving slowly to more shel- 


232 Harper's Novelettes 

tered quarters in the fall, only to move 
again the next spring. Months might 
pass and he would never see a strange 
human face. 

One afternoon, close to the Laguna de 
los Patos, a squad of Gringo cavalry, 
guided by Mexicans, came up to him sud¬ 
denly as he was waking from siesta, and 
he learned that the Apaches had been 
raiding along the border, and that a war 
of extermination against them had been 
waging for a year around him. 

His son had become his helper, had 
died, and a grandson — our little waif 
who broke up the monte game at Ojo 
Caliente—had only been brought into 
the world, ’twould seem, to follow, in his 
turn, the unending round of lifeless life, 
with the old man among the sheep and 
goats on that wide desert. 

He was only a little animal, herding 
with the beasts he herded, and with as 
little knowledge of an outside world. All 
he felt was the great plain below, broken 
in places by rocky hills and mesas, and 
the great sky above; and the sensations— 
alas! too often realized—of heat, cold, 
hunger, and thirst. He burrowed under 
the scant branches of a low sage-bush to 
escape the noonday glare; and watched, 
panting, the great yellow columns of 


Tio Juan 


2 33 


sand whirls towering skyward, wander¬ 
ing to and fro across the desert; and put 
up a prayer of thanks that the herd was 
lying quietly round him to “ La Santisi- 
nia Virgen”; of whom he had vaguely 
heard as a beautiful lady in the cathedral 
of Chihuahua. Half an hour after, look¬ 
ing at his nearly empty gourd of warm, 
semiputrid water, he shook it to see if it 
would last out the day, and wondered 
why, away under the eastern sky, should 
appear and disappear, yet not exist in 
truth, those wide pools and lagoons of 
clear water, with animals standing among 
the reeds on the banks—such lagoons as 
Tio Juan had told him was the “La¬ 
guna de los Patos,” miles to the north¬ 
ward, whence every year, just before 
the cold season, his grandfather brought 
a bundle of reeds to weave into a rough 
mat for a sparse shelter from the 
cold Norther sweeping down over the 
plain, and driving herder and herded 
shivering to the lee side of the rocks, 
where all snuggled together for mutual 
warmth. 

Hunger! How well he knew it! ’Twas 
bad enough every day tramping weary 
and often foot - sore behind the sheep, 
munching at intervals a piece of dry tor¬ 
tilla; but worse, every three months, 

16 


234 Harper's Novelettes 

when Tio Juan overstaid his time drink¬ 
ing at Ojo Caliente and forgot the poor 
boy eking out the last of the tortillas and 
frijoles and counting each morsel as it 
disappeared. Tio Juan, though, was very 
kind, and they had lots to eat for a 
month or so when the old man came back 
again. 

He was almost companionless. The 
two shaggy short-tailed dogs, Lobo and 
Linda, bearlike and wolfish, did not make 
very good friends. 

What he did really like were the fluffy 
long-eared white and gray jack - rabbits 
with black boots, which danced queer 
dances on their hind legs among the 
sage-brush every April. 

Coyotes, the only other denizens of the 
waste, he hated naturally. They slunk 
through the brush, one ear cocked, the 
other dropped cunningly, picking up the 
toads, lizards, and beetles that ought to 
have served Lobo and Linda for supper. 
And if a lamb chanced to be left behind, 
and neither one of the old he-goats or the 
dogs scented them, they cut its throat 
and drank the hot blood, and then came 
to camp at night, wailing, chuckling, 
chattering, in hideous glee. They were 
the Brujos (witches) of the desert—chil¬ 
dren, Tio Juan said, of the great “ cattle 


2 35 


Tio Juan 

devil,”* who, when the vaqueros were ly¬ 
ing asleep by their cattle, would creep 
silently up to a bullock, and whisper 
something in its ear that started it in 
sudden fright, and in a second more the 
whole herd would dash madly over the 
plain in wild unreasoning stampede, 
regardless of watch-fires, vaqueros, and 
horses trampled out of existence at the 
cruel bidding of the “ cattle devil.” 

Such and such like had been the daily 
round of life and thought of our poor 
little waif from four years old till about 
ten days before our story opens, when he 
was lying under a sheepskin one morn¬ 
ing on the open plain, and watching the 
figure of Tio Juan, half lying, half sit¬ 
ting, by the fire of sage roots sputtering 
under the gray dawn, with Lobo and Lin¬ 
da yawning on the other side. 

Hist! What is it? The dogs listen, 
and spring up growling; the flock is 
aroused and on foot; a dull noise ’way 
out in the darkness! What can it be? 

* This is a universal superstition among 
the vaqueros, inspired, probably, from the 
suddenness of stampedes, which mostly hap¬ 
pen without known cause or reason. The 
“ cattle devil ” of the cowboy is called “ Bru- 
jo de Los Ganados” (witch of the flocks) by 
Mexicans. 


236 Harper's Novelettes 

No cattle are pasturing near, yet it 
sounds like the gallop of cattle or horses. 
A moment more, and then a wild exclama¬ 
tion from his grandfather, “ Run, my 
son! run! To the rocks! Away—hide, 
and don’t come out till I call! Away!” 
All is commotion, and the child dives 
and doubles through the brush and cac¬ 
tus for a mile to the rocky point at the 
mouth of the canon, into which he bur¬ 
rows like a rock-rabbit, too frightened to 
know or listen to what is happening 
behind. 

Anxiously he waits Tio Juan’s call. 
The gray rocks begin to glow with light. 
The mesas each side of the canon grow 
yellow, red, and then white under the 
summer sun. ’Tis weary waiting. He is 
hungry and thirsty, and the sun now 
strikes down from directly overhead. 
Only in the crevice he has chosen is a 
little nook of shade, growing less and 
less, less and less. 

The sun is westerning now, and the 
heat from the rocks unbearable. More he 
cannot stand; and so, faint and fright¬ 
ened, he peeps over the rocks and across 
the plain. 

Mustering courage, he creeps over 
rock after rock, and then, taking advan¬ 
tage of every little shrub, glides out tow- 


237 


Tio Juan 

ards the place he had left before dawn. 
By the way he finds a few sheep, and 
drives them tremblingly on; but close to 
camp an old ewe in the lead stops short, 
stamps, and with a frightened bleat scur¬ 
ries off to the right, followed by the 
others. ’Tis no use chasing them, and 
with a growing fear of disaster, he creeps 
straight forward. What is that shaggy 
brown thing lying under a shrub? What 
is snarling beyond? Another step; he 
sees it is old Lobo, stiff and grinning in 
death. He pulls the little knife from his 
girdle, puts a stone in his sling, and soon 
can make out the deserted camp-fire, by 
which coyotes are tearing at two dead 
sheep. There are others beyond. The 
fire is out, and by the little broken-down 
arbor of branches he finds the frijol pot 
upturned and empty. The brush is 
trampled down all round. Where is Tio 
Juan? He calls aloud. A sheep bleats 
here and there in answer; coyotes chat¬ 
ter and howl. He calls Linda and waits. 

Lobo is dead, and there is no Tio Juan, 
no Linda! Perhaps they are getting to¬ 
gether the flock scattered by the Brujo. 
He will run down to the pool to get some 
water, and cook something against their 
return. Those two sheep the coyotes 
were eating will make a good roast, and 


238 


Harper's Novelettes 


the Patron always allows Tio Juan to eat 
the sheep killed by mischance. The pool 
is all trampled in with hoof-marks, and 
it is hard work to fill his little gourd and 
pot. Returning, he takes the flint and 
steel from his waistband, and soon has a 
fire started with some sage-brush roots. 
But on pulling back the boughs of the 
arbor to get at the corn and frijoles— 
Why, what is this? The hole in which 
they were stored is open and empty! 
Hardly a grain of either remains, and 
yet it is a full month before Tio Juan 
can go again to Ojo Caliente to draw 
more rations. Where can Tio Juan be? 
The flock must be dreadfully scattered 
by the Brujo. He will cache the meat in 
the hole, and round up all of them he can. 

By nightfall he has perhaps one-fourth 
of them collected together, though he has 
seen many more out on the plain, but 
too far off to follow that night. Start¬ 
ing the fire again, he lies down by it to 
wait Tio Juan’s coming. 

What can have happened to Tio Juan? 
He was so wise. He knew all the trails 
far south to Chihuahua, and away up the 
great road to the Medanos (sand dunes), 
and where the first grass grew in the 
spring, and the best shelters and latest 
grass in the fall. 


239 


Tio Juan 

There was no use waiting longer, 
though, that night, so the half-famished 
lad broils a piece of meat, and lies down 
to doze till about midnight, when the 
coyotes return, chattering and snarling, 
and have to be driven away, and the 
sheep quieted down again. 

The moon is going down, and it is 
very lonely. Even the pale moon was 
something cheering. And now there is 
nothing but the cold white stars, blinking 
like Brujos’ eyes. 

At last there only remained one little 
morsel of sheep meat. Nearly three- 
quarters of the whole flock had been 
rounded up. To stay here was to starve. 
To-morrow he would drive them south¬ 
ward, through the canon into the Enci- 
nillas Valley, and borrow something to 
eat from the nearest ranch till Tio Juan 
came back. 

There was nothing to pack up next 
morning. The frijol pot, his gourd, flint 
and steel, and sling were all his Lares 
and Penates. The last bit of meat had 
been eaten overnight; and, breakfastles3, 
the boy at dawn headed the flock towards 
the canon. They were not accustomed to 
feed that way, and gave trouble; the 
goats especially, racing over the point of 
rocks and turning back on to the plain. 


240 


Harpers Novelettes 

At last a steady old ewe headed up the 
pass, a few more followed her, and then 
the mass of the herd, while the goats 
skirted the sides of the canon, jumping 
from rock to rock. 

What would Tio Juan say if he came 
back and did not find them ? ’Twould be 
best to leave the flock at the head of the 
valley, and hurry on alone, so as to get 
back to camp, if possible, next evening. 

The canon closes in, and the gray west¬ 
ern wall lights up under the sun in 
dazzling whiteness. What is that black 
thing at the head of the pass, hanging 
on the face of the rock ? There is an old 
dead maguey-plant in a crevice just over 
it at the top of the wall. What can that 
black thing be? He creeps nearer and 
nearer. Holy Virgin! It is a man’s body 
tied by one ankle to the maguey, and 
hanging over the cliff. Who can it be? 
Nearer and nearer he crouches. His 
heart stops beating. That old sheepskin 
waist-cloth he knows well. Can it be? 
Yes, it is—my God, it is!—Tio Juan 
hanging there dead! 

With a wild wailing cry the boy turned 
and fled down the pass and out on to the 
wide plain northward, without an idea of 
where he was going in his grievous hor¬ 
ror, till the project at last began shaping 


Tio Juan 


241 


itself in his small brain to reach Ojo Ca- 
liente, and get the people there to come 
back and bury Tio Juan. 

From the miscellaneous crowd gath¬ 
ered round the sarape at Ojo Caliente an 
equally motley one started down the big 
road southward next morning to find the 
body of Tio Juan, under command of old 
Bill Irwin. 

The canon was reached by evening; 
and there, sure enough, was the brown 
body hanging, ghastly, against the white 
cliff. A couple of riatas were knotted 
together, and the poor corpse, baked and 
shrivelled in the fierce heat of that oven¬ 
like atmosphere, was passed down to those 
below. 

’Twas no “ cattle devil ” conceived such 
a death. One ankle, cut through flesh 
and sinew to the very bone, sustaining 
the whole weight of the body by the raw- 
hide dangling from the old maguey- 
plant, showed it had been suspended 
there alive. This was Apache work. Well 
did they know his trade-marks! 

It was turned over carefully, nay, rev¬ 
erently; and then the mummy form, with 
eyeless sockets and drawn parchment¬ 
like skin, drained of blood and moisture, 
was placed under a pile of stones by the 


242 Harpers Novelettes 

roadside, surmounted by a rude cross, 
that each passing Mexican might heap a 
stone and say an “Ave” over the grave 
of Tio Juan, and each vaquero might 
echo the words of Diamond Brand Bill 
as he musingly turned away: 

“ Trail branded for the kingdom 
come!” 


Jamie the Kid 

BY JOSIAH FLYNT 

I T was my last night in San Francisco, 
and I could not leave without saying 
good-by to Old Slim. His place was 
almost empty when I strolled in, and he 
was standing behind his greasy bar 
counting the day’s winnings. The adios 
was soon said, and I started for the street 
again. I had hardly left the bar when 
the door suddenly squeaked on its rick¬ 
ety hinges, and a one-armed man came in 
with a handsome “kid.” He was evi¬ 
dently dying of consumption, and as he 
shuffled clumsily across the floor, with the 
boy following solemnly at his heels, I 
fancied that he wanted Slim to help him 
into a hospital. He called for his drinks, 
and asked Slim if he knew of any one 
“ bound East ” the next day. 

“ W’y, yes,” Slim replied; “ that young 
feller right back o’ ye leaves ter-morrer: 
ain’t that right, Cigarette?” 


244 Harper's Novelettes 

The man turned and looked at me. 
Grabbing my hand, be exclaimed: 

“Well, I’ll be jiggered! Where d’yu’ 
come from ? Don’t remember me, eh ? 
W’y, ye little beggar, have yu’ forgotten 
the time we nearly croaked in that box¬ 
car jus’ out of Austin—have yu’ forgot¬ 
ten that?” and he pinched my fingers as 
if to punish me. 

I scrutinized him closely, trying to 
trace in his withered and sickened face 
the familiar countenance of my old 
friend Denver Red. 

“ Yes, that’s right, guy me!” he retort¬ 
ed, nervously. “ I’ve changed a little, I 
know. But look at this arm ”—pushing 
back his sleeve from the emaciated hand 
—“ that crucifix ain’t changed, is it ? 
Now d’yu’ know me?” 

There was no longer any reason for 
doubt, for down in Texas I had seen New 
Orleans Fatty put that same piece on 
his lonely arm. But how changed he 
was! The last time we met he was one of 
the healthiest hoboes on the “ Santa Fe,” 
and now he could just barely move about. 

“ Why, Red,” I asked, “ how did this 
happen? You’re nearly dead.” 

“ Sleepin’ out done it, I guess,” he an¬ 
swered, hoarsely. “ Anyhow, the crocus* 
* Doctor. 


Jamie the Kid 245 

says so, ’n’ I s’pose he knows. Can’t get 
well, neither. Ben all over—Hot Springs, 
Yellarstone, Yosem’ty, V jus’ the other 
day come np from Mex’co. Cough like 
a horse jus’ the same. But say, Cig, 
drink out, ’n’ we’ll go up to Jake’s—’s too 
public here. I’ve got a lot to tell yu’, ’n’ 
a big job fer yu’, too: ’ll yu’ come? A’ 
right. So long. Slim; I’ll be in agen 
ter-morrer.” 

We were soon seated in a back room 
at Jake’s. The boy stretched himself on 
a bench, and in a moment was asleep. 

“ Purty kid, ain’t he ?” Red said, look¬ 
ing proudly at the little fellow. 

“ An’ he’s a perfect bank, too, ’f yu’ 
train ’im right. Yu’ oughto seen ’im 
over in Sac* the other day. He drove 
some o’ them Eastern stiffs nearly wild 
with the way he throws his feet. Give 
’im good weather an’ a lot o’ women, ’n’ 
he’ll batter his tenner ev’ry day. They 
get sort o’ stuck on ’im somehow, ’n’ ’fore 
they know it they’re shellin’ out. Quar¬ 
ters ev’ry time, too. He don’t take no 
nickels—seems to hate ’em. A Los An¬ 
geles woman tried him once, ’n’ what 
d’yu’ think he did? Told ’er to put it in 
an orphan ’sylum. Oh, he’s cute, bet cher 


* Sacramento. 


246 Harpers Novelettes 

life. But, Cig,” and his voice dropped to 
a lower pitch, “ he’s homesick. Think of 
it, will yu’, a hobo kid homesick! Bawls 
like the devil sometimes. Wants to see 
his ma—he’s only twelve ’n’ a half, see? 
If ’e was a homely kid, I’d kick ’im. If 
there’s en’thing I can’t stand, it’s homely 
bawlin’ kids. They make me sick. But 
yu’ can’t kick him —he’s too purty—ain’t 
he?” and he glanced at the slumberer. 

“Yu’ pull out at seven, do yu’?” he 
asked, after a pause. 

“ Well, Cig, I’m mighty glad it’s you I 
found at Slim’s. I was hopin’ I’d meet 
some bloke I knew, but I feared I 
wouldn’t. They’re mos’ all dead, I guess. 
Bummin’ does seem to kill us lads, don’t 
it? Ev’ry day I hear o’ some stiff croakin’ 
or gettin’ ditched. It’s a holy fright. 
Yer bound fer York, ain’t yu’, Cig? 
Well, now, see here; I’ve got an errand 
fer yu’. What d’yu’ think’t is ? Give it 
up, I s’pose? Well, yu’ see that kid over 
there; purty, ain’t he?” and he walked 
over to the bench and looked into the 
lad’s face. 

“Pounds his ear* like a baby, don’t 
he?” and he passed his hand delicately 
over the boy’s brow. 


Sleeps. 


Jamie the Kid 


247 


“Now, Cig,” he continued, returning 
to his seat, “ I want—you—to—take— 
this—kid—back—to—the—Horn * That’s 
where he lives. What d’yu’ say?” 

There was only one thing I could say. 
A few months more at the outside and 
Red would be gone, and it was probably 
the last favor I could do him in payment 
for the many v kindnesses he had shown 
me in the early days. 

“ If en’thing happens to ’im, Cig, w’y, 
it’s got to happen, I s’pose; but he’s so 
dead stuck on seein’ his ma that I guess 
he’ll be purty foxy. I’d take ’im myself, 
but I’m ’fraid I can’t pull through. It’s 
a tough trip ’tween here ’n’ Omaha, ’n’ I 
guess he’ll be safer with you. I hate to 
let ’im go at all, but the devil of it is I 
’ain’t got the nerve to hang on to him. 
Yu’ see, I’m goin’ to croak ’fore long— 
oh, you don’t need to snicker; ’t’s a fact. 
A few more months ’n’ there’ll be one less 
hobo lookin’ fer set-downs. Yes, Cig, 
that’s straight. But that ain’t the only 
reason I’m sendin’ the kid home. I 

* The Horn is a triangular extension of 
the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Rail¬ 
way. It begins at Red Oak, Iowa, and runs 
southwest from there for about twenty miles, 
and then northwest to Pacific Junction for 
about twenty more. 


248 Harper's Novelettes 

oughto sent ’im home ’bout a year ago, 
V I said I would, too, ’f I found ’im. I 
lied, didn’t I? Ye-es, sir, ’bout twelve 
months ago I told his mother I’d fetch 
’im back ’f I collared ’im. How’s that 
fer a ghost-story, eh? Wouldn’t the 
blokes laugh, though, if they’d hear it? 
Denver Red takin’ a kid home! Sounds 
funny, don’t it? But that’s jus’ what I 
said I’d do, ’n’ I wasn’t drunk nuther. 
Fill up yer schooner, Cig, ’n’ I’ll tell yu’ 
’bout it.” 

He braced himself against the wall, 
hugged his knees, and told me what fol¬ 
lows. 

“ Yu’ know where the Horn is right 
’nough, don’t yu’? Well, ’bout a year ’n’ 
a half ago I got ditched there one night 
in a little town not far from the main 
line. ’Twas rainin’ like the devil, ’n’ I 
couldn’t find an ‘ empty ’ anywheres. 
Then I tried the barns, but ev’ry one of 
’em was locked tighter’n a penitentiary. 
That made me horstile, ’n’ I went into 
the main street an’ tackled a bloke fer a 
quarter. He wouldn’t give me none, but 
’e told me ’f I wanted a lodgin’ that a 
woman called College Jane ’ud take me 
in. Says he: ‘ Go up this street till yu’ 
strike the academy; then cross the field, 
’n’ purty soon yu’ll find a little row o’ 


Jamie the Kid 


249 


brown houses, V in No. 3 is where Jane 
lives. Yu’ can’t miss the house, ’cause 
there’s a queer sign hangin’ over the 
front door, with a ball o’ yam ’n’ a big 
needle painted on it. She does mendin’. 
I guess she’ll take yu’ in. She always 
does, anyhow.’ Course I didn’t know 
whether he was lyin’ or not—yu’ can 
never trust them Hoosiers—but I went 
up jus’ the same, ’n’ purty soon, sure 
’nough, I struck the house. I knocked, 
’n’ in a minnit I heerd some one sayin’, 
‘Is that you, Jamie?’ Course that wasn’t 
my name, but I thought like lightnin’, ’n’ 
made up my mind that ’twas my name in 
the rain, anyhow. So I says in a kid’s 
voice, ‘ Yes, it’s Jamie.’ The door opened, 
’n’ there was one o’ the peartest little 
women y’ever see. 

“ ‘ Oh, I thought yu’ wasn’t Jamie,’ 
she says. ‘ Come in—come in. Yu’ must 
be wet.’ 

“ I felt sort o’ sheepish, but went in, 
’n’ she set me down in the dinin’-room. 
Then I told ’er a story. One o’ the best 
I ever told, I guess—made ’er eyes run, 
anyhow. An’ she fed me with more pie 
’n’ cake than I ever had in my life. Ke- 
minded me o’ the time we thought we 
was drunk on apple pie in New England. 
Well, then she told me her story. 

17 


Harper's Novelettes 


250 

’Twa’n’t much, but somehow I ’ain’t for¬ 
gotten it yet. Yu’ see, she come from the 
soil, ’n’ her man was a carpenter. After 
they’d ben West ’bout six years he up 
’n’ died, leavin’ her a little house ’n’ a 
kid. She called ’im Jamie. Course she 
had to live somehow, ’n’ purty soon she 
got a job mendin’ fer the ’cademy lads, 
’n’ she boarded some of ’em. That’s the 
way she got her monikey.* See? Well, 
things went along purty well, ’n’ she was 
spectin’ to put the kid in the ’cademy 
’fore long. He-e-e didn’t like books very 
well—hung around the station mos’ the 
time. Sort o’ stuck on the trains, I 
s’pose. Lots o’ kids like that, yu’ know. 
Well, to wind up the business, one night 
when he was ’bout ’leven year old he 
sloped. Some bloke snared ’im, prob’ly, 
an’ ever since she’s ben waitin’ ’n’ wait¬ 
in’ fer ’im to come back. An’ ev’ry night 
she fixes up his bed, ’n’ ’f anybody knocks 
she always asks, ‘ Is that you, Jamie ?’ 
Tunny, ain’t it? Well, somehow the 
bums got on to ’er, ’n’ ever since the kid 
mooched she’s ben entertaining ’em. 
Gives them his room ev’ry time. An’ she 
always asks ’em ’f they know where he is. 
She asked me too, ’ 11 ’ made me promise ’f 


* Nickname. 


Jamie the Kid 251 

I found ’im that I’d send ’im home. 
Course I never expected to see ’im, but 
I had to say somethin’. 

“ Well, sir, six months afterward I was 
sittin’ in Sal’s place in K. C.* when who 
should come in but New York Barcas. 
He called me out, ’n’ says, ‘Bed, wanto 
buy a kid?’ As it happened, I did want 
one, so I asked ’im how much ’e wanted. 
He took me over to a joint ’n’ showed 
me that kid over there on that bench. 
‘ Give yu’ a sinker,’ I said. He was satis¬ 
fied, ’n’ I took the kid. 

“ Well, sir, as luck would have it, ’bout 
a week later the kid got so stuck on me 
that he told me his story. I didn’t know 
what to do. He didn’t wanto go home, 
’n’ I didn’t want ’im to. Course I didn’t 
tell ’im nothin’ ’bout seein’ his ma—that 
’ud ’a’ spoiled ev’rything. Well, I didn’t 
say nothin’ more about it, ’n’ we come 
out here. I’ve had ’im now fer ’bout a 
year, ’n’ I’ve trained ’im dead fine. W’y, 
Cig, he’s the best kid on the coast. Yes, 
he is—but, as I’ve ben tellin’ yu’, he’s 
homesick, ’n’ I’ve got to get ’im back to 
the Horn. I’m ’fraid he won’t stay there. 
He’s seen too much o’ the road; but I’ll 
croak jus’ a little bit easier from knowin’ 


Kansas City. 


2 52 Harper's Novelettes 

that I sent ’im back. I’d like it if he’d 
stay, too; ’cause, to ’fess up, Cig, I ain’t 
very proud o’ this bummin’, ’n’ ’f ’e keeps 
at it he’ll be jus’ like me ’fore long. So 
when he wakes up I’m goin’ to lecture 
’im, ’n’ I don’t want you to laugh. May 
help, you know; can’t tell.” 

Two hours later we were in the rail¬ 
way yards waiting for my train to be 
made up. There were still about fifteen 
minutes left, and Red was lecturing the 
kid. 

“ See here, kid,” I heard him saying, 
“ what’s yu’ learnt since I’ve had yu’— 
en’thing ?” 

“ Bet cher life I has,” the little fellow 
returned, with an assumed dignity that 
made even Red smile. 

“Well, how much? Rattle it off now, 
quick!” 

The boy began to count on his fin¬ 
gers: 

“ Batterin’, one; sloppin’ up, two; 
three-card trick, three; an’—an’—that 
song ’n’ dance, four—four; an’—an’ en- 
halin’ cig’rettes, five—five—” Here he 
stopped and asked if he should take the 
next hand. 

“Yes, go on; let’s have the hull of 
it.” 

“ Well, then, I knows that cuss-word 


Jamie the Kid 


253 


you taught me—that long one, you know 
—that’s six, ain’t it? Oh yes, ’n’ I knows 
that other cuss-word that that parson 
told us was never forgiven—remember, 
don’t you? Well, that’s seven—seven. I 
guess that’s about all—jus’ an even 
seven.” 

“ Ye sure that’s all, kid?” 

“ Well, darn it. Red, ain’t that enough 
fer a prushun? You don’t know much 
more yerself—no, you don’t, ’n’ you ’s 
three times old’s I am.” And-he began 
to pout. 

“ Now, kid, d’yu’ know what I wants 
yu’ to do ?” 

“ Bet cher life I do! ’Ain’ cher ben 
tellin’ me fer the las’ year? You wants 
me to be a blowed-in-the-glass stiff. 
Ain’t them the words?” 

“ No, kid. I’ve changed my mind. Ye 
goin’ home now, ain’ cher?” 

“ Jus’ fer a little while. I’m cornin’ 
back to you, ain’t I?” 

“ No, yu’ ain’t, kid. Yer goin’ home 
fer good. Cigarette’s goin’ to take yu’, 
’n’ yu’ mustn’t come back. Listenin’?” 

“ Say, Red, has you gone bughouse ? I 
never heerd you talk like that in my 
life.” 

“ See here, kid,” and there was a firmer 
tone in his voice, “we ain’t foolin’ now 


254 


Harper's Novelettes 


—understand An’ in about five minutes 
ye’ll be gone. Now I wants yu’ to prom¬ 
ise that ye’ll ferget ev’ry darn thing I’ve 
taught yu’. Listenin’?” 

The kid was gazing down the track. 

“Listenin’?” Red cried again. 

The kid turned and looked at him. 
“ Can’t I enhale cig’rettes any more ? 
Has I got to ferget them too?” 

“ Well, kid, yu’ kin tell yer mother 
that I says yu’ kin do that—but that’s 
all. Now ’ll yu’ promise?” 

“ Gosh, Red, it ’ll be hard work!” 

“ Can’t help it— yu* got to do it. Yu’ 
don’t wanto be like me. Yu’ wanto be 
somethin’ dead fine—’spectable.” 

“Ain’ chew somethin’ dead fine? I 
heerd Frisco Shorty say oncet you was 
the fliest bloke in yer line west o’ Den¬ 
ver.” 

“Yu’ don’t understand kid,” and he 
stamped his foot. “ I mean like yer 
mother. Listenin’? Well, ’ll yu’ prom¬ 
ise?” 

The kid nodded his head, but there was 
a surprise in his eyes which he could not 
conceal. 

The train was at last ready, and we 
had to be quick. 

“Well, Cig, so long; take care o’ yer- 
self. Be good to the kid.” 


Jamie the Kid 


255 


Then he turned to the boy. It was 
the tenderest good-by I have ever seen 
’tween a “ prushun ” and his “ jocker.” 
A kiss—a gentle stroke on his shoul¬ 
der—and he helped him climb into the 
box-car. 

The last we saw of Red, as we stood at 
the door while the engine puffed slowly 
out of the yards, he was standing on a 
pile of ties waving his hat. Six months 
afterward I was told in the Bowery that 
he was dead. 

The journey to the Horn was full of 
incident. For six long days and nights 
we railroaded and railroaded, sometimes 
on the trucks and the blind baggage, and 
again lying flat on top, dodging the cin¬ 
ders as they whizzed about our heads, 
and the brakeman as he came skipping 
over the cars to tax us for the ride. It 
was hard work, and dangerous too, at 
times, but the kid never whimpered. 
Once he wanted to, I thought, when a 
conductor kicked him off the caboose, but 
he faked a professional little laugh in 
place of it. And he also looked rather 
frightened one night when he nearly lost 
his grip climbing up the ladder of a 
cattle-car, but he was afterward so 
ashamed that it was almost pitiful. He 
was the “ nerviest ” child I ever travelled 


256 Harper's Novelettes 

with. Even on the trucks, where old na¬ 
tives sometimes feel squeamish, he dis¬ 
guised his fear. But he was at his best 
at meal-time. Regularly he would plant 
himself before me in waiter fashion, and 
say: 

“ Well, Cig’rette, what’s it to be ? Beef¬ 
steak ’n’ taters ’n’ a little pie—’ll that 
do?” 

Or if he thought I was not having 
enough variety he would suggest a more 
delicate dish. 

“How’ll a piece o’ chicken taste, eh?” 
And the least eagerness on my part sent 
him off to find it. It was not, however, 
an entirely one-sided affair, for I was in 
his service also. I had to protect him 
from all the hoboes we met, and some¬ 
times it was not so easy as one might 
think. He was so handsome and clever 
that it was a temptation to any tramp to 
“snare” him if he could, and several 
wanted to buy him outright. 

“I’ll give ye five balls fer ’im,” one 
old fellow told me, and others offered 
smaller sums. A Southern roadster tried 
to get him free of cost, and the tales he 
told him and the way he told them would 
have done honor to a professional story¬ 
teller. Luckily for me, the kid was con¬ 
siderably smarter than the average boy 


Jamie the Kid 257 

on the road, and he had also had much 
experience. 

“ They’s got to tell better short stories 
than them ’fore they get me!” he ex¬ 
claimed, proudly, after several men had 
tried their influence on him. “ I’m jus’ 
as cute as they is, ain’t I? I know what 
they wants—they think I’m a purtygood 
moocher, ’n’ they’ll make sinkers out o’ 
me. Ain’t that it ?” 

None the less, I almost lost him one 
night, but it was not his fault. We were 
nearing Salt Lake City at the time, and 
a big burly negro was riding in our car. 
We were both sleepy, and although I re¬ 
alized that it was dangerous to close my 
eyes with the stranger so near, I could 
not help it, and erelong the kid and I 
were dozing. The next thing I knew the 
train was slowing up, and the kid was 
screaming wildly, and struggling in the 
arms of the negro as he jumped to the 
ground. I followed, and had hardly 
reached the track when I was greeted 
with these words: “ Shut up, or I’ll t’row 
de kid under de wheels.” 

The man looked mean enough to do it; 
but I saw that the kid had grabbed him 
savagely around the neck, and, feeling 
sure that he would not dare to risk his 
own life, I closed with him. It was a 


258 Harpers Novelettes 

fierce tussle, and the trainmen, as they 
looked down from the cars and flashed 
their lanterns over the scene, cheered and 
jeered. 

“ Sick ’em!” I heard them crying. “ Go 
it, kid—go it!” 

Our train had almost passed us, and 
the conductor was standing on the ca¬ 
boose, taking a last look at the fight. 
Suddenly he bawled out: 

“ Look out, lads! the express ’s 
cornin’!” 

We were standing on the track, and 
the negro jumped to the ditch. I snatch¬ 
ed the kid from the ground and ran for 
the caboose. As we tumbled on to the 
steps the “ con ” laughed. 

“Didn’t I do that well?” he said. 

I looked up the track, and, lo and be¬ 
hold, there was no express to be seen. It 
was one of the kind deeds which railway 
men are continually doing for knights 
of the road. 

As we approached the Horn the kid 
became rather serious. The first symp¬ 
tom I noticed was early one morning 
while he was practising his beloved “song 
’n’ dance.” He had been shaking his feet 
for some time, and at last broke out lust¬ 
ily into a song I had often heard sung 
by jolly crowds at the “ hang-out ”: 


Jamie the Kid 


2 59 


“ Oh, me an’ three bums, 

Three jolly old bums, 

We live like royal Turks. 

We have good luck 
In bumming our chuck. 

To hell with the man that works!” 

After each effort, if perchance there 
had been one “ big sound ” at all like 
Red’s, he chuckled to himself: “ Oh, I’m 
a-gettin’ it, bet cher life! Gosh! I wish 
Red was here!” And then he would try 
again. This went on for about half an 
hour, and he at last struck a note that 
pleased him immensely. He was just go¬ 
ing to repeat it, and had his little mouth 
perked accordingly, when something 
stopped him, and he stared at the floor as 
if he had lost a dime. He stood there 
silently, and I wondered what the matter 
could be. I was on the point of speaking 
to him, when he walked over to the door 
and looked out at the telegraph poles. 
Pretty soon he returned to the corner 
where I was reading, and settled down 
seriously at my side. In a few moments 
he was again at the door. He had been 
standing in a musing way for some time, 
when I saw him reach into his inside 
coat pocket and bring out the tattered 
bits of pasteboard with which he did his 
three-card trick. Unfolding the packet. 


26 o 


Harper's Novelettes 


he threw the paper on the track, and 
then fingered over each card separately. 
Four times he pawed them over, going 
reluctantly from one to the other. Then, 
and before I could fancy what he was 
up to, he tossed them lightly into the air, 
and followed them with his eye as the 
wind sent them flying against the cars. 
When he turned around, his hands were 
shaking and his face was pale. I cruel¬ 
ly pretended not to notice, and asked 
him carelessly what was the matter. He 
took another look at the world outside, 
as if to see where the cards had gone, 
and then came over to the corner again. 
Putting his hands in his trousers pockets, 
and taking a long draw at his cigarette, 
he said, the smoke pouring out of his 
nostrils, “Pm tryin’ to reform.” 

He looked so solemn that I did not 
dare to laugh, but it was all I could do 
to keep from it. 

“ D’ye think I’ll make it go ?” he asked, 
after a pause, during which his feet had 
tried to tempt him from his good resolu¬ 
tion, and had almost led him into the for¬ 
bidden dance. Almost every hour from 
that time on he asked that same question, 
and sometimes the childish pathos that 
he threw into his voice and manner would 
have unmanned an old stager. 


Jamie the Kid 261 

The last day of our journey we had a 
long talk. He was still trying to reform, 
but he had come to certain conclusions, 
and one of them was that he could not 
go to school any more; or, what was more 
to the point, that he did not see the need 
of it. 

“ Course I don’t know ev’rything,” he 
explained, “ but I knows a lot. W’y, I 
kin beat Red figgerin’ a’ready, an’ I kin 
read things he can’t, too. Lots o’ words 
he don’t know ’t I does; an’ when he’s 
drunk he can’t read at all, but I kin. 
You oughto seen us in Cheyenne, Cig.” 
And the reminiscence made him chuckle. 
“ We was both jagged, ’n’ the copper 
served a paper on us, *n* I had to read it 
to Red. Ain’t that purty good? Red 
said ’twas, anyhow, ’n’ he oughto know, 
oughtn’t he? No, I don’t think I need 
much schoolin’. I don’t wanto be Presi¬ 
dent of the country; ’f I did, p’r’aps I 
oughto know some more words; but see- 
in’s I don’t, I can’t see the use o’ diggin’ 
in readers all the while. I wish Red had 
given me a letter ’bout that, ’cause ma 
’n’ I’ll get to fightin’ ’bout it dead sure. 
You see, she’s stuck on puttin’ me tru 
the ’cademy, ’n’ I’m stuck on keepin’ out 
of it, ’n’ ’f we get to scrappin’ agen I’m 
afraid I won’t reform. She’ll kick ’bout 


262 Harper's Novelettes 

my smokin’, too; but I’ve got her there, 
ain’t I ? Red said I could smoke, didn’t 
’e—h’m? Tell ye what I guess I’ll do, 
Cig. Jus’ after I’ve kissed ’er I’ll tell 
’er right on the spot jus’ what I kin do. 
Won’t that be a good scheme? Then, 
you see, she can’t jaw ’bout my not bein’ 
square, can she ? Yes, sir, that’s jus’ what 
I’ll do.” And he rubbed his tattooed 
hands as if he had made a good bargain. 

The next morning, just as the sun was 
rising over the prairie - line, our train 
switched off the main road, and we were 
at last rolling along over the Horn. The 
kid stood by the door and pointed out the 
landmarks that he remembered. Erelong 
he espied the open belfry of the academy. 

“ See that cup’la, Cig ?” he cried. “ Dad 
helped to build that, but ’e croaked doin’ 
it. Some people says that he was jagged, 
’cause he tumbled. Ma says the sun 
struck ’im.” 

A few minutes later the train stopped 
at the watering-tank, and my errand was 
done. There was no need to “ jocker ” 
the boy any longer. His welfare depend¬ 
ed upon his mother and his determi¬ 
nation to reform. He kissed me good- 
by, and then marched manfully up the 
silent street toward the academy. I 
watched him till the train pulled out. 


Jamie the Kid 263 

Thus ended one of the hardest trips of 
my life in Hobo-land. 

One warm summer evening, about 
three years after leaving the Horn, I was 
sitting in a music-hall in the Bowery. I 
had long since given up my membership 
in the hobo fraternity, but I liked to 
stroll about now and then and visit the 
old resorts. And it was while on such an 
excursion that I drifted into the variety 
show. I watched the people as they 
came and went, hoping to recognize some 
old acquaintance. I had often had odd 
experiences and renewal of friendships 
under similar circumstances, and as I 
sat there I wondered who it would be 
that I should meet that night. The 
thought had hardly recorded itself when 
some one grabbed my shoulder in police¬ 
man style, and said, “ Shake!” I looked 
around, and found one of the burliest 
rowdies in the room. He turned out to 
be a pal that I had known on the New 
York Central, and, as usual, I had to go 
over my remembrances. He also had 
yarns to spin, and he brought them so up 
to date that I learned he was just free of 
a Virginia jail. Then began a tirade 
against Southern prisons. As he was 
finishing it he happened to remember 


264 Harper's Novelettes 

that he had met a friend of mine in the 
Virginian limbo. “ Said ’e knew ye well, 
Cig, but I couldn’t place ’im. Little 
feller; somethin’ of a kid, I guess; up 
fer thirty days. One o’ the blokes called 
’im the Horn kid, ’n’ said ’e use to be a 
fly prushun out in the coast country. Ole 
Denver Red trained ’im, he said. Who 
is he? d’ye know ’im? He was a niee 
little feller. Why, what’s wrong, Cig? 
Ye look spilled.” 

I probably did. It was such a disap¬ 
pointment as I had hardly imagined. 
Poor kid! He probably did so well that 
his mother tried to put him into the 
academy, and then he “ sloped ” once 
more. I told the tramp the tale I have 
just finished. He was too obtuse to see 
the pathetic side of it, but one of his 
comments is worth repeating: 

“Ye can’t do nothin’ with them kids, 
Cig. After they’s turfed it a bit they’re 
gone. Better let ’em alone.” 

But I cannot believe that that kind- 
hearted little fellow is really gone. Who¬ 
ever meets him now, policeman or phi¬ 
lanthropist, pray send him back to the 
Horn again. 


THE END 


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